Forever Snowing
by PixieXW
Summary: This is a trial running story- its success depends a lot on my health. It centres around the relationship between Snow and Charming post curse as they learn to adapt to the good and bad of a world without happy endings
1. Chapter 1

"Charming," I found myself sighing, tortured between the want to giggle and the need to fall into him, to allow myself relief after the years of waiting. He traced his tongue over my ear once more, gently nibbling the top ridge before swapping his mouth for his pointing finger, using his other hand to pull me closer. He took hold of my ear lobe, removing one earing then the other. His hands wound like a seductive serpent around my neck, warm with the rush of love and lust through his blood. The catch of my necklace came apart and the key fell into his lap. He looked into my eyes for the first time since we'd said goodnight to Henry. Those eyes were so full of something science could never prove or explain. There were no words for the way they glittered when they met mine, a sea of bright stars shinning in a dark sky.

These eyes which had changed so much over time but with every ounce of pain we'd gone through; with every battle endured, every curse related nightmare, they still housed love. The unnoticed undertone in his life's orchestra. Goosebumps shuddered over my skin at his gentle touch on my neck, stroking lightly back and forwards every bit as gentle as a soft, new feather. He enjoyed treating me like china, said my skin colour matched that thought.

"Come here," he whispered. His voice breathy as he nudged my back and spread his legs apart, allowing me to stand between them. He stretched upwards, somehow managing to reach my lips with his own and kiss tiny kisses across my bottom lip, little licks and tiny nibbles joined the rhythm, his own little pattern that worked. The composition of submission, just as a puppy showed the pack leader. Two broad hands slid over the curves of my back, up and down, bumping over each vertebrae. Reaching the bottom they began to edge up under the silk and onto my skin. He smirked against my cheek. I shivered, tilting my head to claim his lips and began to run my hands firmly over his broad shoulders.

So many memories, so familiar and yet so very different from what I'd grown to know. A different world was now our home, and far more than postnatal as I'd half-expected it to be. We had an adult daughter, a daughter who hadn't long been in a similar position. That was the daughter who had been growing and squirming around within my body the last time we'd been together. We had a grandson and this still felt new and exciting. To us it was still only year one , I knew I had doubled in age but I looked and felt like the old me, he still looked and felt like him.

Hands which were no longer asking my brain's permission clung to a t-shirt which was in turn glued onto thick muscles. He lifted his arms above his head and allowed me to pull the pointless clothes over his head. He lifted my hand, covering it with his and placing them flat against his chest, covering the two overlapping scars. The cruel place an arrow had been ripped out and the slice when he'd carried our newborn to safety. Scars from those days, long ago.

My head went down to those marks and I tried my best to kiss them better, forcing my lips against the wounds he received thanks to me. The wounds he received for me. As I tried to save his scarred skin a hand came to rest on my head, a hand which played with my hair then trickled down to my neck and shoulders. Two hands appeared instead, onw on each shoulder and slowly they pushed off the skinny straps. The dress stayed up long enough for me to pull away and meet his eyes, giving permission for the hands to move down across my chest with a slightly desperate sound of approval, pealing the silk from my skin.

His eyes hazed over, focused on the flesh he was revealing. He became the child with an endless chocolate bar, except the treasure he unwrapped meant far more than food and lasted much, much longer.

As the material lightly thumped to the floor, creating a soft pool around my feet he pulled he closer still till I was right against his chest, allowing me to feel the flames burning through every inch of him. I pushed my hands down between us, searching blindly for his belt buckle. I earned a shocked gasp when my fingers wandered a tad too far.

I pushed back and he did his button himself, clearly becoming inpatient. My eyes focused unashamedly on his groin, watching as he unleashed his whole self to me. Arms were around my waist and his mouth buried into my neck, tiny sighs and gasps fluttered from my mouth without even thinking. It came naturally, knowing it was what he needed to hear, knowing it led us forward in the familiar dance. That we had choreographed together over the months.

He released my neck, breaking the suction he'd created with a pop and wandered back to my mouth. He brushed my nose with his own, eyes open and glistening with need.

"I love you Snow, all of you." As he spoke his hands tiptoed over my skin he fondled and rubbed and teased every piece he could reach. He smiled, like he was hiding a personal secret as he watched my every reaction. It was far too long, and it was far too magical to ignore. A hand was stuck to my sweaty thigh and Charming lifted my leg round his hip, tucking me round his body and drawing out a deep sigh of appreciation. Touching, feeling his slightly sticky body on my own, feeling his most intimate rub against me. Every muscle in my body tensed, locking my leg around him in preparation.

Another arm was placed on the small of my back and then he lifted me up, muscles rippling as they also tensed. My other leg found its way around him and I clung to his neck.

I could feel every nerve in my body buzzing into life, every one of the thousands of nerve endings lit like live wires, desperate. They yearned as much as I did for what was to come.

Charming sunk a little further back onto my bed, recklessly pushing the embroidered quilt down to the foot.

"Don't want to get it stained," I smiled at that, sometimes you could really tell he'd been brought up as a shepherd.

"Charming, it's white," I whispered into his neck, feeling him wince at the sound of my voice.

"And so are you, but I still take upmost care to keep you that way." I smiled against his neck, his hands massaging my back, soothing me as if he were trying to make me tired rather than excited.

"You're beautiful," he nuzzled my hair, "and I love you." I pushed myself up and met his eyes with a glance that said everything that had to be said.

"Show me."

* * *

Gasping for breath, I pulled on the arms of the man above me, wanting him to give in and collapse, exhausted on to me. Sweat layered his arms and the concaves of his chest. His eyes were still half-lidded in concentration and his hair sticking to his head. He'd worked hard to send us both into the height of pleasure together, smiling through his own pleasure at my reaction. Charming gave in to his fatigued muscles slowly, pressing his weight onto me bit by bit. His sticky arms slid under me, pulling my chest to meet his rather than his coming down to mine. He held me tightly, wanting to let me feel his love as much as I wanted him to feel mine. My husband proceeded to bury his face in the hollow between my shoulder and neck, breathing heavily. My own arms were lazily thrown across his shoulders, fingers playing with his short, damp hair. After a while we began to recover, safely knowing Henry hadn't heard the scream that Charming only just stifled as it left my mouth. I softly nudged him with one of the legs I still had vice-like across his hips, he took the hint and tipped over onto his side, taking me with him so we faced each other instead. He smiled at me, a cheeky but ever so loving grin. "I love you Snow, more than the world."

"I love you too," I mumbled nuzzling into his chest and burying my head as much as I could against his warm cupped my breast in his hand, stroking his thumb slowly back and forth as I happily breathed in the pungent aroma of sweat and sex from his skin.

"You know," he whispered after a moment or two, "I never got to taste your milk."

It was a promise I'd made to him back when I was heavy with Emma, when I couldn't move a centimeter without leaving a soggy spot behind me. Charming had mentioned that he wondered what the milk I produced would taste like, he had clearly tasted cow and goat milk but had long lost the memory of his mother's flavor. I had made a promise to him at that time that once Emma was born I'd let him suckle me, just once.

"I'm afraid you would struggle now, obviously the curse wouldn't have been so effective if I'd been producing milk the entire time." My husband nodded, his chin firm. I looked at the scar I had given him, the little light-coloured line that ran just to the right of his chin. It was funny how quickly it had all changed. Eighteen months on from the day I clobbered him with the rock we had been living together, ruling the same kingdom and I was expecting our first child. So fast the time had gone and sometimes it had felt so slow, every second meaning something we had yet to learn from each other.

"We missed out on so much," I whispered, absent-mindedly. An arm went around my back, a hand splayed against my spine between two shoulder blades.

"But we can make up for it now, we've got years ahead and now we've got a daughter and a grandson to spend it with."

"Mm,"I replied, curling my legs up, so I lay like a baby next to him. He noticed me shiver as the heat began to leave my skin and reached down to pull the blankets over us but I stopped him with a hand to his arm.

"Wait, I should probably put something on." The disappointment was evident on his face before he'd even thought of voicing it. I couldn't stop myself from laughing at his expression, he looked like the little boy who'd just dropped his ice cream.

"Aww, I know but we have a pre-teen grandson upstairs and seeing his grandmother naked is not what he needs to add to his problems." I pushed myself up and out of the grasp of my disgruntled husband and began groping under the pillow for some form of sleepwear then remembered it was somewhere on the floor. I dragged myself, feeling very self-conscious, from the mattress to root around for some form of clothes.

Eventually I found the coral coloured silk nightie I'd been wearing before,skimpy enough to keep my still heated husband happy and thorough enough to prevent traumatizing Henry. I dressed quickly before padding back to bed, to be enveloped in blankets against my husband's chest.

"Your still naked," I pointed out, flopping my head down onto the pillow we were managing to share.

"Is that a problem?" He asked lazily before coaxing my lips into a deep, open kiss.

"Suppose not," I whispered in return, "Unless Emma arrives home before we're up, but I fished you these." A pair of pyjama bottoms held in my hand.

"No top?"

"Nope, you're better this way." He laughed and even through the dark I could tell he rolled his eyes. A struggle followed but he managed somehow to get the trousers on before thumping back down next to me making the bed springs complain once again. I heard him try to stifle a yawn, I'd forgotten what he was like, usually he fell asleep on my chest moments after, he'd been trying to stay awake for me.

"You need to sleep."

"No, I need to spend time with my beautiful, sexy, alluring wife," he protested , rubbing his nose against mine.

"Well whoever she is she can wait, my handsome, brave and loving husband has had a hard night bringing and receiving the most amazing pleasure and he needs his rest," I planted a kiss on his nose in return.

"Can I ask one more thing? Answer honestly. When you were with Whale, how,how did he compare with me?" I had to bite my lip to prevent waking Henry when I laughed,

"Oh Charming, compare isn't even close. I learned an important lesson, making love truly is magical but you've got to have some in you to make it work! Otherwise its just insert tab A in slot B, ugh. Don't wory I won't be repeating that again in a hurry!"

He chuckled, then kissed me again, short and chaste.

"Goodnight Snow."

"Goodnight Charming."

(A/N) Sooooo…. First every attempt at a love scene, I'm quite proud of it! There is a chance it could work into a longer piece but that depends on my interest in writing it and your interest in reading it. There are some hinters in this as to where the continual would lead but not sure yet. Please Review! Ps. It is sort of a continuum to Grand-father and Son, so you don't have to but can read that as well!


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you planning on waking up  
today?" I whispered in my wife's ear, her eyes still shut, long black eyelashes shadowing her cheeks.  
"Hmm?" Came my reply and she rolled further onto her side.  
"Mary Margaret, I know your not really asleep." I saw her tiny smirk. It was only a second before it disappeared but it was long enough.  
"Do I need to get a jug of water?" I looked over towards Henry, who already sat round the breakfast table. Henry grinned back at me, hopped down and went to turn on the tap. At the sound of the water tumbling into the basin two snowy white eyelids opened, revealing two green eyes.  
"Alright I'm awake," she laughed. I left her to get dressed and headed back to my half eaten toast.  
Henry looked the complete contrast to his Grandmother. His eyes were bright and ready for the day ahead even after the bird in his room last night.  
The bluebird, very unlike the ones that used to fly around our castle, was so scared he refused to listen to Snow as she sung the right notes, telling the little bird this was our nest and he had to find another. Instead if going outside it was currently sitting on the beams of the roof looking down at us.  
"Charming!" The voice that called was worried, frightened, terrified. The voice that had recognised a sleeping curse. The voice that said our daughter was coming too soon. That desperate sound that said I need you set my heart jogging and my senses to go live. The ancient fight or flight instinct, something was very wrong. I stood from the table quickly and turned the corner into our bedroom compartment. Snows hands were on the bed, all her weight leaning into them. She was breathing in a strange rhythm, one that didn't make sense fast then slow then speeded again.  
"David," her eyes lifted to look at mine and my heart froze. Her eyes were pained and her skin so pale it looked translucent.  
"Snow! What is it? What's wrong?" My arms steadied her waist but she didn't answer, collapsing into my grasp. The jogging heart beat began sprinting, her eyes were shut. She fell into unconsciousness, slipping away from my grasp.  
"Henry!" I yelled just as the boy appeared, looking dazed in his stripy pyjamas.  
"Do you know how to phone 911?" He nodded, terror taking over his little face when he saw the state of his grandmother.  
"What's wrong with her?" He panicked,  
"Henry, phone!" He nodded and ran back into the kitchen for the hand-held receiver. I scooped Snow up into my arms, watching her arm dangle down by her side, she was totally out of it. She had fainted once before, Doc had brought her round by some kind of scent except I had no idea what the thing had been.  
Her head flopped down over the edge of my arm, her eyes shut. I didn't know what to do with her. I felt tears brimming in my eyes, I didn't know how to help her, she'd been fine and then all of a sudden. I could hear Henry speaking to the operator, giving the address. I was hit by the thought that it was cold outside. She still wore last night's skimpy pj's and would freeze out there. Laying my unconscious wife down on our bed I wrapped the top blanket around her little body. She looked so tiny, like a baby in the white blanket. Her hair lay in a mop across her forehead , her lips bright even though she'd just woken up. She looked like she had in her coffin, I had to try.  
I leaned down over her, gently stroking her cold and unresponsive cheek. I kissed her cold, soft lips. Nothing. The breath I'd been holding slowly fizzled out as a sigh, this wasn't a problem magic could solve.  
"It didn't work." I turned to see Henry in the doorway.  
"I know kid, but the doctor's will sort it out." I patted the boy on the shoulder, he was such a good kid- better than I could've imagined he would be.  
"You better get some clothes on, the ambulance will be here soon."  
"But what abou-?"  
"Snow's going to be alright Henry, and I'll get on the phone to your Mom, see if she'll meet us. Off you go."  
The kid disappeared upstairs and I crouched at my wife's side. I'd placed a pillow under her feet to help the blood return to her brain but there was nothing to indicate she was in there at all.  
My hand ran over her black hair, she looked so young and sweet. So perfect and peaceful. She was out cold, not a whisper of life yet she was breathing.  
The bang on the door brought me back to my senses, the head of a young paramedic stuck it's way round the door before entering when he saw me on the floor.  
"Ok," the young man began, followed through the door by a dark-skinned middle aged man.  
"So no response yet?" The older of the two asked, I shook my head and he began to shower me with questions about the way she'd fallen and what she had been doing the moment before as well as had she had any bangs to the head or any alcohol. All were no, but he fired the questions at me so fast I was lucky to get some of them right. I almost got her name wrong, firstly calling her Snow Margaret, before twisting around the words in my head to give her the name they would recognise.  
The young paramedic was poking and prodding at my wife, taking her pulse and tickling her ears, waiting for a response.  
"How long has she been like this?" The words had just slipped from his lips when a little nose wrinkled, then two green eyes peered through two white eyelids. The most beautiful pair of eyes I'd ever seen were dazed and she kept blinking in the light.  
I noticed her jump when the younger of the paramedics looked into her face.  
"Hello ma'am, can you tell me your name?"  
"Mary Margaret Blanchard."  
"The year?"  
"Two thousand and thirteen."  
"And who the president is?"  
"Barack Obama."  
"That's fine, no immediate signs of head injury although we'd like to take you back with us to give you a thorough check over." The older paramedic interjected, smiling falsely.  
Snow nodded to the men but gave me a glance of total confusion. She didn't know what was happening.  
"Now, how do we get a trolley up all these stairs." The old guy grumbled, sounding worse than Leroy.  
"I can walk," Snow insisted but all the males present shook their heads.  
"I can carry her down." The older paramedic scowled and went to protest but the younger just rolled his eyes,  
"Nobody will know Raymond and I'm pretty sure Prince Charming doesn't drop people very often." The old man muttered something under his breath and headed for the door.  
"What's happening!" Henry called dashing down the metal steps with his shoe laces clattering down behind him.  
"Henry!" Snow called, now sounding perfectly alright as if nothing had happened at all.  
"Grandma!" He called back, making a u turn from the last step to the bedroom we shared. "You woke up," the ten year old grinned before turning to me, "it did work, it always does."  
"What worked?" Mary Margaret asked, her voice only a whisper.  
I put a finger to her lips,  
"Don't waste your energy. How do you feel?" She thought about this for a moment, tossing her head to the side then centring it again.  
"I feel weak, very weak?" I could tell that was true because when I slid my arm under the bend of her legs and across her back she just slumped in my grasp, happy to let me take her full weight. Her head slid back and her eyes shut. By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs I knew she was out once more. Henry trailed along behind me, he was quiet but I had too much to think about. I didn't need to think about Henry, he wasn't the one being taken to hospital. The paramedics instructed me how to place my wife on the padded trolley and then began to buzz around her like a swarm of bees.  
They strapped her down at her feet, thighs and knees, putting a cuff around her arm. The older man proceeded to stick tabs onto her chest, I had to stop old-fashioned laws of decency overtaking my mind when one of the stickers was placed on the underside of her breast. I decided to cover Henry's eyes with the hand I wanted to connect with re paramedic's jaw. He may have been doing his job but there was no need for the lingering gaze on her white skin; pervert.  
"To monitor her heart rate," the younger boy perked up as he began to press a pump, inflating the cuff on her arm.  
"This takes her blood pressure, it's a good chance her blood pressure is low if she's fainting, but it can be a wide ranging symptom so it's something the hospital will pick up." The younger boy, much to my delight stayed in the back of the ambulance with Henry and I.  
My mind was miles away for the majority of the journey, he said it could be a wide ranging symptom, of what? I wasn't going to lose her again. I tried to stop myself from thinking it but all that came to mind were Snow's words in the burning room, would we always lose each other too? Would I lose her permanently?  
"Charming?" The weak voice shattered my thoughts like glass. She was awake again, her arms had been fixed by her sides and her head supported. There was fear in her eyes, "David!" She called again, unable to turn her head to look at me.  
"I'm here Snow," I reached for her hand, covering it with mine and giving it a firm squeeze.  
"I'm here too Grandma, it's ok the doctor's will make you better, it's not a curse Grandpa checked." My wife laughed once before the paramedic intercepted.  
"Do you still know where you are?" Snow nodded.  
"Good, we're almost there Ms. Blanchard, and then the hospital staff will do a more thorough examination." He smiled supportively at each one of us in turn and that triggered the thought. Emma. I fished in my pockets, digging for my mobile. It wasn't there.  
"Damn it." I muttered under my breath,  
"What's wrong?" The question came from Henry this time.  
"I forgot to phone your Mom."

By the time Emma arrived at the hospital I'd been settled in a bed in the Emergency room and had bloods taken. Emma had been sidetracked by her Father sending her to get me clothes. I felt for Emma, poor child had only just became my daughter and was now having to pick out underwear for me. Henry sat on one of the two chairs beside my bed, swinging his feet and looking out the window behind my head. Charming wasn't able to sit still, he couldn't stop panicking about me even though I felt much better than I had. My blood pressure had came back up to a normal level I felt a little less weak than I had before. My doctor, doctor Whale much to Charming's horror and discomfort, had suggested having something to eat and drink would help me feel a bit stronger still, which the cup of weak, lukewarm tea and rich tea biscuit, did.  
All of us looked up at hearing footsteps in the hallway to see Emma walking quickly to my bay. Her eyes glanced through the crowds of visitors, patients and staff searching for someone she recognised. David stood and went to greet her just as she was turning to ask a nurse where she could find me. She gave a small smile to her father, a notion that both Henry and I noticed and that we shared a grin over. It was lovely to see them starting to understand each other. They'd never really known each other before the curse was broken and I'd had the added bonus of her having lived inside my body for eight months. I just had the upper hand in the race to become her parent.  
"Hey," my blonde baby smiled as she walked up to us. She sat down next to Henry, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He looked up at his mother with admiration. I noticed the looks they shared and could only hope one day Emma and I could share those too.  
"I didn't really know what to bring but, ugh, yeah there's some clothes for you and I brought pj's as well, just incase they keep you in." The conversation stopped and so Emma, feeling awkward, struck up the obvious.  
"What did the doctors say?" I sighed, connecting eyes with my worried husband. He was trying to look less worried than he really felt, trying to act casual when in reality he was panicking inside.  
"They said it was probably due to low blood pressure and low blood sugar after," I glanced at Henry, thinking of a way to word this that would go straight over his head, "too much vigorous exercise." Emma's expression went from confusion to realisation to disgust and her Father laughed from his position at my feet.  
"Ugh, right." Emma replied and allowed the room to fall into silence.  
It was another hour or so before Doctor Whale entered the bay once more, clipboard in hand. He was followed by another doctor I hadn't seen before and new doctors, new anyones, were uncommon. This doctor had pure white-blonde hair and the darkest eyes, which have away instantly that the hair was died.  
"Hello again Miss Blanchard." I simply nodded in response, just wanting the man to walk away and take my awful memories with him. The biggest mistake of my life was not what I needed to see standing in front of me.  
"The bloods confirmed what I thought. That you felt weak and disoriented due to low blood glucose levels. However this isn't something to be worried about it is quite common giving the other thing we found."  
"And what was that?" Charming glared inpatient with the man for obvious reasons, even if he had apologised he had done more damage than he first thought. I'd been untouched by anyone but my husband- not even a kiss had changed that.  
"We found that congratulations were in order. There is a very high level of the hormone hCG in you blood stream , miss Blanchard, and there is only one explanation for that. You're pregnant."


	3. Chapter 3

(A/N) thanks to those who've read this story i hope you enjoy it. I would love to see what you guys are thinking about it. What you like and don't like, so please review. If there is anything you'd like to see in this story then please feel free to let me know, I like to make people happy. :)

ps the question marks should be the name of Henry's horse seen in The Doctor but it isn't given a name- suggestions are welcome.

"What?" Emma spoke first. Her face wore only shock, plain shock. We all turned to look at her. I saw something in her eyes which maybe only I could see. She felt betrayed, betrayed by us and I understood her feelings completely. Emma had only just came back to us after a lifetime apart, she was only just beginning to trust us and now another baby. My mind flashed back to when Ava and Nicolas had been searching for their father, Emma had been abandoned as a three year old after her foster family discovered they were expecting. I could see straight into her mind and I knew those memories were coming back, even if they weren't wanted.

"What does that mean?" Henry's voice was tiny, he looked at his Mum in shock, confused by her reaction. The poor boy must have thought it was a bad thing. Henry was originally asking his mother but when Emma didn't move, literally frozen in shock, he turned to look at charming and I. My husband had since moved to sit by my head and looked almost as stunned as Emma. I took up the question, wanting to stop Henry's fear. The poor child must have thought I was dying.

"It means, that I'm going to have a baby." Henry showed very little emotion, nodding his head to show he understood but it was as if he was waiting for more. I tried to ask him if he wanted to know anything else but the words stuck in my throat. I was stunned too, another baby was inside me and I felt like I'd only just given birth to Emma.

"You ok?" Charming's voice sounded weak but worrying about me took the eyes off himself. I simply nodded, not sure what to say. This was such an amazing, happy day and yet we were all so tense. I wanted to feel the need to rush to my husband and kiss him as hard as I could, I wanted to rejoice in our new found family member but Emma's face told it wasn't going to be that way, not yet.

A nurse picked that moment to come and introduce herself. She held a bundle of leaflets and a black diary and smiled sweetly. The nurse was a plump, older woman who looked very much the part of the midwife she turned out to be. Emma seemed to see her approach and decide to take her chance to leave.

"Come on Henry, I've got to get back to work and you've got to get to school,"

"But my teacher's here," he tried to argue but my daughter gave him a 'don't argue' look and led him from the room, offering only a small smile as a goodbye.

With a sigh I let my head drop back on the pillows, too tired to really listen to the woman in front of us but knowing it was important. I lay and listened to the now named Moira going on about how they'd have to make an appointment to officially give me a date and how they guessed from the hCG I was in my fourth month. She took my number and we made a date for the ultrasound appointment and then we were free to go home. My only treatment being to remember to leave something next to my bed to eat before I got up and to make sure I got up slowly each morning. And that was that, Moira gave us a goodbye smile and I suddenly felt the urge to scream. We were having another baby and I should've been happy about it, we should have been over the moon but Emma and Henry and the curse and Regina, everything. And one more thing. We weren't together four months ago, not physically but I was with someone. I begged and begged it not to be true, but in my head I knew it had to be. The words were tingling against my lips when Charming helped me into my coat; they made my tongue heavy as he squeezed my knee during the drive home. He knew something but he was giving me time. My husband thought I was dazed and in shock but really I was waiting to drop a devastating bomb, a bomb which would hurt him, would stab him straight in the heart. I wanted to tell him but I could see the pain in his eyes already.

Mid afternoon he sat me down, planted a cup of tea in my hands and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. The long sigh he let out at the beginning of the conversation said it all.

"Speak to me, what's wrong?" His voice was so soft and sweet, he was trying to be patient. I looked at my feet, wanting nothing more than to feel his arms tight around me, to hear him say he loved me, to hear him say we could get through this together. I didn't want to hurt him again. The words were sitting behind my lips, ready to come out but I swallowed them,

"It's nothing, I'm just surprised. I didn't expect this." My hand found its way to my stomach. I almost pulled it back off, feeling a little sick. That man had a child growing inside me. I felt so angry, it was all wrong! I never wanted to have sex with Whale, I never wanted to have sex with anyone I only ever planned on making love to my husband. Now, because of the curse I'd been unfaithful to him. He needed the truth and I just couldn't give it.

"I didn't expect it either," he was calm and warm, inviting and I couldn't stop myself anymore. The tears began to spill and I was instantly wrapped in strong arms, his smell surrounded me and I cried harder. I just didn't know what to do. 'Always hold goodness in your heart', those were the words of my mother, the word's I had lived by since she passed on. Except this time I didn't know what was good, to tell him the truth and let him suffer, or to lie for his happiness.

"I know you're over-thinking, there's something you're not telling me but it's ok. Honestly, Snow, I know you'll tell me when you're ready." He gave up planting a soft kiss to the top of my head and just held me. Feeling awful, I let him do it.

"Grandpa!" Henry burst through the door followed by Emma. I hadn't realised the time, school was out already.

"Guess what?" Henry continued

"? Came over to see me when I called him in the field!"

Charming jumped straight into 'Grandpa mode' unraveling his arms from around me and standing to give a congratulatory pat on the shoulder.

Emma's eyes went straight to mine and she knew- well she certainly didn't get her mind skills from her father-, she knew exactly what I was thinking about. My daughter was unlikely to forget our conversation about my night of shame and I could see it all in her eyes as she stood by the door. Every day was being counted in her mind, it didn't change the facts and she knew it. Emma's eyes went dramatically wider but I subtly shook my head, warning her against uttering a single word.

"So what're we eating tonight?" Henry asked. I realised the question was obviously directed at me and did a rather convincing goldfish impression while my brain and mouth tried to connect.

"It'll be something easy tonight kid, your grandma's had a hard day." My grandson looked instantly confused,

"But isn't it a good thing that your gonna have another baby? My mum'll have a brother or sister and ill have an aunt or uncle." Charming looked stumped on how to answer that one so I took it on.

"Yes Henry, we are but it's difficult to get used to that's all."

"So why were you crying?" Observant, looks like Emma had passed it on too.

"Because that sometimes happens when you have a baby inside you, you sometimes just cry or get very tired, sometimes even feel sick- it just comes with the job."

"I'm glad I don't have to have babies." At that all of us laughed, charming ruffled his hair and added a very convincing 'me too' but his voice soon turned more serious.

"But Henry, as well as that, I'm going to need you to take care of Mary Margaret for me, you see some things can hurt the baby on the inside , like lifting heavy things. So do you promise to help her carry things, to hand out the books in class?" Henry nodded vigorously, glad he had a purpose. Charming smiled at his grandson then came back to me, pulling me up from the sofa I'd been occupying.

"Snow might be the one with a baby living within her but that doesn't mean we're not all a big part of it. We are going to deal with this pleasant surprise together. Just like we always planned to." That sentence came back on us a few hours later, the boys had headed back to the stables for the night feed leaving Emma and I on the dishes. She'd been mostly quiet since the boys left, only offering the occasional yes and no answers. She came out with it suddenly as she plucked a tea cup from the water,

"Was I planned?" At first I didn't really know what she meant then linked it back to the conversation we'd had earlier. I decided to be honest.

"No, you weren't. In fact I was scared to tell your father because your timing wasn't great. Emma you were one of life's best surprises."

"Then why do I get the feeling sproglet in there isn't the same?" She knew why. I'd seen the sums going on in her head, she just wanted to make me say it out load.

"Because you know as well as I do that unlike this child you actually belonged to David." I snapped harder than I'd meant to at her but Emma didn't flinch. I mumbled a sorry under my breath to which my eldest just rolled her eyes.

"I already thought you might be pregnant by your moods, you've been all over the place."

"Have I? And Charming never said a thing,"

"No," Emma continued, " because he loves you."

I threw down the checkered dish cloth and turned to look at the ceiling then back to my daughter.

"Exactly. He loves me and I love him, so it's clear to see why I can't just tell him I'm expecting the child of another man, a man he hates."

"He only hates Whale because of what he did to you,"

"And so clearly telling him I'm about to have that man's child will make it better," came the sarcastic come back. The frustration was getting to me, I couldn't take much more of this. I needed to suck it up and get on with it. Instead I looked back at my daughter, needing to be told what to do.

"Just tell him," she sighed, leaning against the island, " I know and I'm ok with it. You didn't know you were cheating because you didn't know you were married. He did it too!"

"He did?"

"Uh, are we forgetting Kathryn's pregnancy scare? Yes he did it too and that's over now."

"Exactly, it should all be over but now I'm pregnant."

Emma deflated, feeling defeated now and sank further in on herself.

"I would offer you a drink," she continued, walking to the table, "but you know, I can't." I smiled shyly, trying to take her advice.

"What would you have done before? What would Snow do?" My daughter continued trying to help even though we both knew it wasn't likely to change things.

"Snow would never have this problem because that part of me couldn't have slept with someone else. I wouldn't have known what to do."

Emma gave me a wide eyed look which couldn't believe I could be that innocent.

"Well, " I explained, smiling, " it's not like Regina was going to give me the talk."

Emma laughed, realising how strange that would've been. She shook her head, watching me as I went back to drying dishes. After a moment of feeling her eyes on my neck I looked up from the plate in my hands and turned back to face her.

"Ok, I'll tell him. Once Henry's in bed, If you'll give us a moment."

My little girl gave me a proud smile, nodding her head.

"Sure."


	4. Chapter 4

(A/N) hey guys! Hope you enjoy this chapter, those of you who haven't given up because of the nature of the story. Thank you for being open minded and those of you who don't like it, I'd urge you to read another few chapters, just to see what you think? Hope you enjoy it and please comment!

"Hey," Charming smiled as he walked through the front door, Henry miles in front and already in the kitchen. I gained a soft kiss on the cheek before he heading after his grandson. They wrestled playfully at the fridge door before Henry dodged his grandpa and grabbed the jug of orange juice out of the fridge door.  
The pair of them laughing as Emma fished out some glasses. I felt my stomach twisting, seeing him smile and thinking of the awful news I had to give.  
"Henry, shower. Come on its Monday, you've got school tomorrow." Henry sighed, sulkily but with a raised eyebrow from Emma he did as he was asked. She turned to give me a small smile of support before heading off upstairs. I realised she'd sent Henry in the shower for a reason, it would prevent Charming raising his voice.  
I took a deep breath and walked over to him, running my hands up his back and across the width of his shoulders. He sighed deeply and relaxed under my touch before turning and pulling me to his chest instead.  
I stopped him, holding my hands up against his chest. I couldn't look him in the eyes, couldn't see the confusion and the fear.  
"David." My eyes went to my stomach then his hands. I watched him slide them around my waist then back to settle across my middle. I took hold of his hands, pulling them away and feeling his confusion burn into the top of my head.  
"David; I need to talk to you." I took a moment, took a deep breath, shoved my fringe out of my face and eventually looked up into his blue eyes. A lump began to form in my throat, choking me.  
"The baby. The baby isn't yours."  
His eyebrows creased together, his eyes full of misunderstanding.  
"What?" He gasped, looking away from me, unable to cope with what I'd told him.  
"That, that's not possible. It has to be."  
"Think about it, Charming, it's been four months."  
The fire began in his eyes. Now he knew what I was saying. His muscles tensing straight away.  
"He did this to you, to us."  
"No he didn't," I replied, speaking firmly, trying to pull my emotions out of this. To show him the crude young woman he met in the forest.  
"David I did that willingly. You know I did, I am sorry for that but getting angry at him won't help us."  
He stared across at the door, his chest deflating as he let out a huge sigh.  
"So what the hell do we do now, huh Snow? How do you suppose we fix this?"  
He was angry, frustrated was more fitting and I knew it wasn't with me but still his words stung.  
" I don't know," I whispered truthfully,  
"What happens now is up to you. I'm sorry for what happened but we can't take it back. Violence is no answer to this issue, and arguing doesn't solve anything. This is just an effect of the curse, another wave of pain and I can't force you to ride it. I'm not going to tie you to me."  
Now panic took over in his eyes, he looked even more upset than he had before.  
"What are you saying? Snow, I love you, I would never leave!"  
"I'm not saying that, I just want to be sure you know it's an option."  
With that I walked away from him, straight to our bedroom and hid behind the frosted glass panel. I slid down to the floor and felt the tears running down my cheeks. I wanted him to run after me, to hug me and kiss me and say it was alright. I wanted him to make promises to bring up our baby as if it were his but he didn't. He didn't move at all. I watched his blurry form, he stood against the island for a few minutes then turned and walked straight out the door.  
My tears turned from tiny droplets to wailing. I couldn't stop and I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't know where he'd gone, whether he left for good or went to beat the life from Whale but he left me to cry.  
I heard Emma's feet on the stairs, heard her cross the floor and then she was there, slouched down beside me and hugging me tight.  
"Hey," she whispered into my ear as she held onto me, tears falling on her shoulder, "Guess it didn't go so well, huh?"  
"I basically told him not to stay tied to me, I told him to leave." I sniffed, trying to stop the tears I still felt tumbling from my eyes.  
"I heard every word." My daughter reassured, "He's coming back Mary Margaret, I know he is."  
"How can you know?" I half snapped, half sobbed back at her. She pulled away from the embrace taking my hands in hers.  
"Because he loves you, he won't do anything to hurt you. He will come home. Trust me."  
"Then why did he go?" I retaliated, but still Emma remained calm.  
"If he's anything like me, he's gone to his car. He just needs to think."  
At that moment Henry appeared, dressed in his pj's with a wet mop of hair over his face and bare feet.  
"What's wrong?" He asked looking straight at me, "where did Grandpa go?"  
"Come on Henry," Emma got to her feet, placing her hands on her son's shoulders and trying to pull him away but he shrugged her off.  
"He's just gone for a walk, he'll be back-." I tried to spin a story for Henry but the boy was too clever he knew it wasn't right.  
"Your lying!" He yelled, becoming angry at being treated like the child he was at heart.  
"Henry, please you're not helping. Go upstairs and I'll be there in a minute," Emma said firmly, slipping into her parent role. Henry rolled his eyes, not looking best pleased but did it.  
My grown up daughter looked at me again as soon as she'd checked Henry was out of sight.  
"I'm alright," I told her straight out. Emma wasn't an easy nut to crack and she just glared at me. I kept my gaze and eventually she broke.  
"Ok, just go to bed and think it through. Everything will work out." I nodded, getting to my feet again. I realised how stupid I was being, Charming would be back. Everything would work out. I was just letting the hormones go to my head.  
"Go check Henry's ok, I think we've confused him a lot. I'm sorry." Emma went to say something in response but the look I gave seemed to stop her in her tracks. She just nodded before turning for the door.  
I busied myself, trying to keep my mind off what had happened. First tidying my bedside table, needlessly straightening a bookmark and checking the time on the alarm clock. I went and rummaged through the wardrobe, picking out clothes for the following day. I browsed, looking through tops with low necklines, smiling when I remembered the days I'd tried to seduce the man who had turned out to be my husband. I looked at the section of summer dresses, realising I had put on weight since it had become too cold for those clothes. I remembered feeling ill around the time I'd spent with Whale, remembered putting it down to my rocky relationships. It had been the queasy feelings of early pregnancy, just like when I'd had Emma.  
Eventually I ran out of things to do and collapsed into bed at only quarter past nine, desperate for sleep to take me over so I couldn't think. It didn't change the fact he wasn't home. It didn't change what I'd done, what the curse had done. The whole house was a mess because of Whale and as much as I wanted to blame him I knew that would mean telling him. I didn't ever want him to know, didn't want him ripping my family to shreds. I didn't want to be the mother who sent her child away each weekend to stay with its father. I didn't want want to have to explain how my second child had a different father to my first. I didn't want the teenager who argued they wanted to stay with their real dad. I wanted to be carrying our baby, our creation with his seed planted inside me. I wanted him to feel it moving around and know he had helped to make it. I wanted him to grip my hand tight as I cried through labour.  
"I'm sorry Charming, I really do love you," I whispered into the air. My hands reached round for his pillow, I hugged it to my chest, burying my nose in the fabric and breathing deeply, smelling the scent I loved more than any in the world.  
I must have fallen asleep eventually because I was roused from it by a cold hand gently shaking my shoulder.  
"Snow, Snow wake up," the voice of my husband filled my ears and I was washed through with love and relief, with happiness of every kind. Then I remembered.  
I turned from my side onto my back, my cheek brushing against his skin, his chest it turned out.  
"I'm so, so, sorry. I love you and Emma, and this baby too. You're right about the curse. It needs to be embraced, I love you and that is all that matters."  
I didn't know how to reply, didn't know what to say. I had known, somewhere deep inside that this would be his reaction, that he was loving and charming enough to make the choice. I felt myself smiling a little, the relief was so unbelievably great. He felt my cheek on his chest and pulled me closer to him, wrapping his arms vice-like around my waist and pulling me across him so my head lay on him, my hand resting against his bare stomach.  
"I'm sorry too, and I have more reason to apologies, I did sleep with him."  
A finger came to rest on my lips in the dark, silencing me.  
"Let's not lay blame Snow, whatever happened it's not something we can change."  
I could have argued more but I didn't, feeling we had gone through enough pain and confusion, feeling we needed time to lie together, to hold each other and to come to terms with what this meant for us all.  
The man I loved more than life itself pulled the quilt up around me as I slid from his chest to rest my head on the pillow beside him. He reached across and very carefully, very slowly began to kiss me, a kiss so soft it felt like it was barely there. So sweet and tender that there was barely a sound when he pulled away. On the windowsill behind our heads the crickets could be heard and the occasional chirp of a bird. As if the kiss had somehow reformed the harmony in Storybrooke.  
"Goodnight, Snow White," my prince whispered into the dark.  
"Goodnight Prince Charming."


	5. Chapter 5

"Argh, great!" I groaned, tugging yet again at the button of my jeans. There was no way on earth that the button was going to reach the button hole.

"What is it?" My husband called from his side of the bed where he himself was pulling on a pair of jeans. I didn't answer him, heading out of our bedroom section of the loft and calling in the direction of the stairs.

"Emma! Do you have a pair of leggings I could borrow?" I waited momentarily for a reply but none came so I took to the stairs instead, still wearing my too small jeans and the t-shirt I'd worn to bed.

Emma was still sitting on her own bed when I walked into the room, Henry still dressed in his pyjamas on his side of the bed they shared.

"Emma, can I borrow a pair of leggings? I forgot how fast it grows." My eyes went down to my stomach, which had became dramatically podgier in the few weeks.

"I don't have any jeans to fit and all the leggings I own are already in the wash," I continued to complain and Emma nodded, forced sympathy on her face with a bit of something I couldn't understand. I could tell it was too early in the morning for her to care. Even though she crossed to her chest of drawers and pulled out a pair of black leggings, handing them to me she gave a half-smile and added,

"Guess we'll be clothes shopping this weekend."

"Your belly has got kinda big," Henry added, his expression full of thought and head cocked to the side.

"Guess that's a good thing?" He asked me, still not exactly sure. The only pregnancy he'd ever seen was Ashley-or Ella's- and he didn't have any form of relationship with her. The kid must have seen pregnancy on TV and of course he had the book which showed what happened to me first time round. However he must have still had questions.

"Yes," I replied, " it means the baby's growing." I made a mental note that when I told my class I'd have to remind them they could ask me any questions they had. I didn't plan on telling them just yet, so would have to get my grandson to keep it to himself for the time being. I planned to wait until after the scan was done today, Emma told us that we would get printed pictures of our baby and I would show them to my children.

"Got something?" Charming asked when I reached the bottom of the stairs. He was already dressed and had my mug in hand, going to wash it out before filling it again as well as his own. I nodded to him and continued walking, which he seemed to see as odd. My husband put the mug down on the breakfast bar and followed me, standing behind me as I fished through the wardrobe. I couldn't find a top to wear that was respectable enough for work and long enough to cover my belly as well as everything else that a ten year old should not see of their teacher.

As I searched I began to notice the numb pain in my nose. I hadn't felt it when I first got up but now it was quite sore. I went to gently touch it with my fingers when,

"Shit!" I turned instantly at the sound of my husband, profanities weren't exactly a part of his everyday language and so when I saw the reason I knew it would be big. There was blood, darkened blood spread right across my side of the sheet. He looked horrified, scared; sorry. That's when I understood, he thought I'd had a miscarriage. He walked around the bed and, placing his hands on my arms, looked down at me sincerely.

"We need to get you to the hospital, I'm so sorry Snow." I tried not to smile at his confusion,

"It's not what you think." I remembered, a haze had taken over my memory of the night before but now I was certain of what had happened. The towel lay on the floor to prove it.

"Think about how I sleep- or have done since we began sharing a bed- my head was off the pillow, my right hand on your chest then I got a nose bleed. Look at the pattern of the blood." I could visibly see him calming down, his shoulders relaxing. He spontaneously reached across, cupping my cheek and pulling me into a quick but deep kiss causing me to whimper with the flush that ignited from his actions.

"What was that for?" I smiled when he pulled away.

"Because," he began, cupping my other cheek and rubbing our noses together playfully, "I love you and I am relieved you are ok, I know it isn't mine but you are."

I smiled back at him, he could be do honest, loving. He wasn't finished yet however and sat down on the bed.

"However I don't believe you just happened to get a nose bleed Snow. Tell me the truth."

I took a deep breath, knowing he wouldn't like what I had to say.

"You must've been having a nightmare and I didn't wake up to help. You got to the frantic stage and you, you punched me." His eyes grew ridiculously wide and he stared at me in horror.

"It only bled a little, I mopped it off my face and came back to bed. It must have started again when I fell back to sleep." My Charming looked so disgusted with himself, so concerned for my safety that I felt really awful.

His eyes went from my face to my stomach, the source of his worry.

"Are you sure it was just your nose?" He was serious in every aspect, the look on his face the one that banished the idea of lying from anyone's mind.

"Yes I am certain."

"I could've hurt you, or the baby. Snow this is not something I want to see again. I think I should take up residence on the couch for a while." I rolled my eyes,

"David your legs would hang off the other end. It won't happen again because I'll start taking naps in the afternoon stopping me from falling so deeply asleep each night." This time charming disagreed.

"Mary Margaret you are expecting a baby! You need to sleep, I'll shuffle the sleeping arrangements. You could share with Emma or Henry," he was trying to be helpful but I wasn't convinced.

"No, that wouldn't work, Henry is more likely to kick me and it would be awful if I were to wake up with my hand on his chest. And Emma can't share with her Father, that's just awful- imagine if you we're to have a dirty dream. She's seen enough before without that!"

I cut myself off towards the end of the rant, realising I was being difficult.

"I'm complaining aren't I?" I asked my husband. Charming smirked knowingly and nodded, muttering 'just like before' as he walked back into the kitchen.

He was right, when I had Emma I was a pain in the mornings, even annoyed with myself some times. It was funny how the pregnancies were similar even though it wasn't Charming's seed which brought it to life. I hadn't felt queasy with my first child either; odd.

I returned to clothes raking and eventually found a low-necked tunic top. The neck, once on, was just high enough to avoid showing cleavage and would have to be suitable school attire.

"I need new clothes," I mumbled wandering from the kitchen and casually taking a bite of Charming's toast, putting it back on the plate before he noticed.

"I saw that," Emma called, coming down the stairs just behind me. She wore a smug smile as well as her coat.

"Saw what?" My husband asked turning round from the fridge. He spotted his plate.

"Oi," he sounded offended but I knew it was just a ruse.

"Eating for two," I reminded him, patting my growing stomach. He smiled, crossing the room and picking up the rest of his toast before I ate it all.

"Hey Gramps, grandma," Henry called as he thumped down the stairs behind his mother. He was half dressed for school, wearing his uniform but no socks.

"Good morning Hen-," I was cut short by a funny feeling in my stomach, like butterflies but without the nerves. The feeling tickled the inside of my belly.

"Snow." Charming's voice turned cold when he saw what happened. He still wasn't convince that he hadn't hurt me in the middle of the night. He placed his hands on my shoulders, waiting for a reply. They were all waiting, three anxious faces looked at me. They must have thought I was insane because I was smiling,

"The baby moved," I whispered. I'd forgotten how magical it was, forgotten the beauty of the first connection. My little one announcing he or she was there.

The three horrified looks turned to smiles. Henry looked excited, his eyes wide and glistening,

"Cool! Can I feel it?" I laughed at my grandson's enthusiasm, shaking my head.

"You'll be able to soon Henry but not quite yet. It's not quite big enough."

"How big is it?"

"About the size of a banana," his mother chipped in.

Looking up at her face I wasn't sure about what she'd said. Emma had been distant ever since I'd discovered we were expecting. I wondered if it was because of Whale, because her baby brother or sister

Would only be her half-sibling. Maybe it was because we were the same age , because if things changed we could be bringing up uncle and niece at the same time. Maybe she just felt awkward and left out because we were having another baby, one that we would see grow up. Whatever it was I hoped she'd come clean soon, I don't want to create a rift.

Charming saw it too, he wore a look of concern. With that look my worries turned from daughter to husband.

He hadn't been distant, very much the opposite. He has been intrigued and involved with the new baby even though it wasn't his child. Even though he knew a part of Dr Whale grew inside my body, that the doctor had touched a place only he had before. I wished I could turn around and tell Charming it wasn't real, that I'd made a mistake. But I couldn't because it wasn't, this was going to happen.

I glanced down at my watch, brooding on the things in my head and happened to register the time.

"Oh, Henry. We've got to get to school, I've got to hand my letter in to the principle and then get everything set up. We better go,"

Emma nodded, a mouthful of cereal which she began to chew deliberately before she could speak.

"Yeah, kid get your shoes. I better get down to the station." Henry nodded running off to find his bag and his shoes while I sifted for my own.

Grabbing coats bags and car keys we were eventually on our way. Needing the car because of our lateness over a nosebleed and lack of clothes.

Henry began to talk a soon as him bum hit the front seat, talking about seeing his friends again and all that the suddenly he began talking about the baby. I felt the need to remind him not to tell his classmates yet, to let me tell them all. That's when the cigs began to turn.

"You know inside you're belly, where does it fit? Can the baby just bob about anywhere?" I tried not to laugh at this image.

"No, the baby grows in my womb, a special part of the body that only girls have. That's where your grandfather planted the seed which turned into our baby." Henry nodded, blushing before his next question,

"And grandpa planted it when you were making love, right?" I swallowed, wondering where he'd heard that phrase and how on earth he seemed to know what it meant. Henry seemed to be sated for the time being but it did make me think. I left a mental note to ask Emma what exactly she had told Henry, or who could have told him.

Arriving at the school we came quickly face to face with Jim the PE teacher- also known as Frederick in our own world.

"Good morning Ms. Blanchard," he smiled walking over to me with a warmth in his eyes.

"It's good to see you again."

"It's good to be back." I replied truthfully. Jim looked at Henry in surprise, as if not expecting my little friend.

"Henry's my grandson now," I reminded the other teacher and he shook his head in shame.

"Of course he is, I forget these things. I'm sorry."

I gave him a soft pat on the shoulder,

"You've been through quite a lot recently and I'm not surprised, everyone looks different. I thought about my own appearance, I was becoming less like the Snow White they thought they new rather than more like her.

It crossed my mind that I could tell Jim about the baby and the information would be safe. I felt a sudden mix of excitement. So far only those I lived with and doctor Whale knew about the baby. It was amazing news.

"You might've noticed I look a bit different in other ways. Your the first family outsider I've met since finding out. I'm pregnant." Jim smiled shyly, clearly not sure what to say, although he did offer congratulations from him and Kathryn. A few months ago I had never imagined Kathryn would be congratulating me over having David's child. Things had really changed.

Jim went on his way and I continued with Henry in tow to the principles office.

After the curse broke and Emma and I were swept away to the Enchanted Forest the town turned to stand still. The people of Storybrooke had been a bit of a mess, scrabbling around to help Charming bring us home. Such a mess that the children had an unofficial school holiday. Since then there was a school council held and it was a set when they would return. This was the first time for weeks they'd had any schooling and the first time with two identities. It was also my first day working since discovering the baby and so I had to give in my letter explaining I was expecting and planned to work right up till the week before my due date- not that we knew when that was yet.

I also had to ask to leave for my appointment that day.

I could've phoned in earlier to tell the principle but we were trying to be careful and keep the baby safe from the likes of Regina and Gold. I didn't want Whale to know any more than he already did. Charming would be the child's Dad, no matter who his biological Father was.

The day went faster than I'd expected it to. It felt as if lunch time had only just passed by, an hour which had been full of whispers followed by smiles and congratulations as news of my baby-to-be began to grow. Some of the older pupils, grade fives, did give some suspicious looks as if they suspected I might be expecting but no one asked so no one was told. I was sitting on the edge of my desk, looking through some essays on the class' favourite books when my husband knocked on the door. The kids had been busy working on maths problems but the moment Charming knocked they snapped out of their work ethic. All eyes followed Charming as he walked round the outside of the classroom towards me. To my pleasant surprise he walked straight over and kissed me, and not on the cheek either. A chorus of 'eww' rose from the children- all except Henry. The innocence of the children was so funny at times, an innocence I'd have to challenge tomorrow when they were introduced to their temporary class mate via ultrasound.

Charming ignored the children but smirked, still taking a notice of their comments before he spoke to me.

"Ready?" He asked, looking towards the door. I nodded, turning back to the class,

"Right. I want everyone to stay working quietly. Mrs Thyme is just through the wall and I want a good report from her. Now remember to bring your news stories tomorrow and I'll see you then." There was a chorus of goodbye's from all the students as Charming took my hand, squeezing it, and led me from the classroom.

"Well, how have you been today?" He asked when we were a safe distance

from the school doors. I knew what he was expecting, when I had Emma I had missed the morning sickness and the other early symptoms but began to get tired and achey and nauseous as time went on. Charming had been against my idea to work until the baby arrived because he remembered Emma but I had sworn it would be different this time. So far I'd been right.

"No, I've been fine. Nothing's been bothering me at all yet. Except being conscious that I had to crouch at child level with a top like this on."

He chuckled, the twinkle in his eye making it obvious he wasn't bothered about the neckline.

I gave him an accusing look but he just shook his head, opening the driver side door and allowing me to slide in, sitting in the middle. He preferred that, his hand going between the gear stick and my knee most of the time.

"Right," he slid the keys into the ignition, "Storybrooke general hospital awaits."

The journey was a short one and it wasn't long until we were sitting in the maternity outpatients waiting room. We were surrounded by others waiting, mostly couples. I was ashamed to find I didn't recognise many of them but they recognised me, they certainly recognised me. I was even offered a curtsey by a little girl. There were also varying sizes of bumps in the room, verging from not there at all to very prominent and fit to burst. I appeared to be in the middle. It was funny, looking around, to think some of these women had been pregnant when the curse began and so had lived in a haze for twenty eight long years.

The waiting room seemed ridiculously quiet, not a single person spoke above the volume of a Robin. I didn't want to be the first to start a conversation and Charming, Charming seemed less himself that afternoon. I wasn't sure what it was but I'd had a feeling, ever since I told him about Whale, that he was holding back. He didn't want to hurt me and clearly he thought telling me what was wrong might hurt me.

Eventually we were called through by a tiny, petite girl in the standard uniform. This girl mentioned she was the sonographer, the person who would conduct the scan on my stomach. She explained in her timid tone that our midwife was running a little late but that she'd see us after the scan was conducted.

We were led through into a darkened room, a curtain splitting it into two halves for privacy. A table like bed sat just behind the blue curtains, which were so thin they looked more like crepe paper. Beyond the bed was a trolley, not much bigger than a tea trolley, which was topped with a big screen that resembled an old desktop computer monitor. The bed was dressed with paper to keep it sterile and I was asked to lie down along the table while the shy sonographer typed some information into the keyboard. She asked my name and date of birth, finally assuring my husband that he should sit down on the blue plastic chair beside my bed.

"Now, what were going to do miss Blanchard, if I could ask you to pull your top up and pull your leggings down a little then I'm going to place some paper under the waistband, just so I don't make a mess." The little woman began to act as she spoke, tucking more of the crepe paper under my leggings and then she too took a seat and began to squeeze blue jelly onto my skin. She had mentioned it might be cold but it wasn't as cold as I had expected.

"Are you ready?" The sonographer smiled before putting the ultrasound wand she held against the gel.

At first the screen was dark, almost all of it black and then as the wand began to move more was revealed. I saw bigger white areas. The shape slowly came out, a small but definite blobby shape. I could pick out a large alien like head and a body. Legs even stuck out, curled up in a cannonball shape.

It was overwhelming, to think that blobby shape, the little alien, was a baby. A baby growing and changing inside my body. It was a living growing thing on the screen in front of me. I felt dampness on my cheek, a year skidding down and dropping off my chin. It was so amazing, spectacular even, to see our baby. Charming's hand came across and he wiped my tears with his thumb. I'd almost forgotten he was there, sitting beside me. I turned my head on the deflated crunchy pillow to look at him and saw there were tears glistening in his own blue eyes. He took the hand which lay against the paper sheet, squeezing it in his with a tight grip.

The sonographer smiled sweetly at as, she whispered that so many people no longer expressed such joy at seeing a scan. She asked us if we wanted to know the sex then explained all the body parts in turn.

It was at that point our midwife arrived on the scene and began adding to what the scan had told us. She said how he could now move towards certain things and that if we were to push on my belly he would kick back. She suggested I take things easy and try not to take a whole day's work on my legs. She suggested we try walking and swimming for some simple exercise.

I had just been offered a tissue to wipe all the gel from my skin when the nurse took a quick look through my file before sending me for my weight and height to be taken.

She paused on the second page. Her smile turning to a confused frown. Moira read the section of my notes once more then looked back to me.

"Dr Whale wants a Alef8 done, a genetic test which is tested in the blood and can detect some very cruel diseases. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about."

"Hey, how'd it go?" Emma asked the moment we walked- or waddled in my case- through the front door. Henry was sitting patiently waiting for food and his mother continued to stir a steaming pot.

Charming pasted a grin on his face and drew the photos out of his inside pocket.

"Emma, would you like to meet your baby brother?"

Emma's shocked smile was false, I could see it right away. But then so could she, she saw straight through me like I was a chard of glass. It didn't take her long to drag me aside and ask that awful question.

"What's wrong?"

(A/N) oooh cliffhanger! Hope you liked this chapter it is a lot longer than previous ones because so much had to fit in. If you have any questions always feel free to ask since this might've been a tad too quick. Comments much appreciated and thanks for reading. Ps if you can check out my two new Once stories called Finding Herself and My Baby.

Thanks


	6. Chapter 6

"Nothing, nothing's wrong." I trekked to escape her but Emma was having none of it.

"I'm just. I was thinking about Regina, she destroyed your childhood. What's going to happen when she finds out about your brother." I lied and walked quickly away. Emma would know that I'd just told her yet another lie but I didn't care.

Charming and Henry were sitting at the table together. Grandson fully engaged in what his grandfather was explaining. Charming was pointing his way through the photo, showing off our son's head and his chest, his feet and tiny little toes.

I wondered how he could do it, put on a smile and pretend there was nothing happening. Pretend we hadn't been given yet another reminder that the baby hadn't been fathered by him. How could he pretend we hadn't been given a time bomb.

"Mary Margaret, come on. If it were nothing we wouldn't be talking about it." I smiled at her quoting me, it was so long ago we had been speaking about Graham. It was funny how all our conversations seemed to be based around boys. I knew Emma was right, she really cared and she was this child's sister. I turned and nodded to my firstborn, allowing her to lead me to my bedroom.

Emma thumped down onto the bed, leaving a space for me next to her which I sat in. She then waited, frozen totally, until I began to talk.

"Dr Whale asked for some extra tests to be done. He wanted an Alef8, which tests for genetic diseases. It turns out he was a carrier for Canavan's disease." I had to stop for breath, it was as if someone had just opened the floodgates and every drop of water was determined to flow out.

"That means your baby brother is unlikely to live beyond ten. It means that his brain is slowly shutting down from his birth onwards, he will probably never walk or talk. He might be totally paralysed by the end. I've waited so long for a family, I didn't want to have to wait any longer and now, now we only have ten precious years.

"And what more of a reminder does David need that I'm not having his baby? Now it has a condition that he doesn't carry, a condition you don't have because he doesn't carry it. I'm scared, Emma. Scared of what he might do, I want to think he wouldn't hurt the doctor but after this? After him giving the baby a death sentence? I am no longer sure." The water escaping slowly went from a tsunami to a trickle and I felt like I could breath again.

Emma was looking down at her lap, trying to hide the shock on her face.

"He wouldn't."

"What?"

Emma looked up at me sincerity in her eyes,

"He won't hurt Whale, that would hurt you. Whenever he's angry at someone he asks himself what you would think, what you would do. He won't do anything."

Tears sprung from my eyes, racing each other off my cheeks. It felt like all I'd done recently was cry, it wasn't like me to cry so often.

"Hormones right?" Emma joked. She cautiously wrapped her arm around my shoulders in a half-hug. The closest to a hug she'd ever voluntarily engaged in. That thought had more tears flowing from my eyes, Emma sat patiently and rubbed my back, letting me get everything out.

I heard footsteps and noticed the shadow over the door, Charming's worried sigh, heard him whisper my name before he came to sit beside me.

I felt the weight move and the springs complain as he sat down and then he pulled me over to him, resting my head against his shoulder. His hand moulded to the back of my head, the other arm wrapping around my body as much as he could manage.

"I know, I know," he whispered, slowly rocking me back and forward in his arms.

At some point Emma left us alone but the tears and the pain took over all my senses, making it impossible to notice my surroundings. It must have been almost an hour before the water stopped gushing from my eyes, I heard the door open and shut. Emma and Henry going out, my baby girl giving a muffled excuse leaving us some privacy.

Once my eyes seemed to run dry and the pain in my heart grew numb David pulled back from me. He gently, cautiously slid his arm under my legs and lifted me into his lap, tightening his grip once more. My arms wound around his neck, gripping and scoring his back with a need to be close to him, for him to make everything better.

Except true love's kiss couldn't break this curse.

He stayed silent, he knew me well enough to understand I didn't want words. I just wanted to be held, to be rocked, pampered and loved. All too soon however he pulled away, gave me one soft, sincere, kiss and a sweet smile before he stood me on my feet, getting up behind me.

"Now, I know this is hard. I know that deep in there," he paused to press his fingertips to my heart, "You feel awful. You wish you could stop this from happening, but nature has taken it's course and we must make sure we give him all we can in the years he's got. Our son will live like the prince he is."

"Our son?" He'd never referred to the baby as ours before.

"Yes, your right. I love you and I love him. I don't care that I didn't make him, just like I'm trying not to care about what Whale did to you. He's my son just as much as you're my wife."

I couldn't speak. It was so torturing on the heart, I was filled with so much love for Charming and so much pain for our son. The mix was causing so much pressure I began to feel sick and fuzzy.

I turned on my heel and rushed to the bathroom without even a thought of warning to my beloved who came straight after me, calling in alarm. I reached the toilet just seconds before I threw up, bringing up only water since there was nothing in my stomach. Still I continued to retch and cough for another few minutes until I felt tears slopping down my cheeks from the awful feeling.

"You've gone white." Charming spoke, his eyes set like sapphires on a ring in their sockets.

"I'm always white," I tried to joke but it didn't make any change to his fierce gaze. He helped me up from where I'd sprawled on ceramic tiles, being very cautious and looking very scared even though I'd only been sick. He held onto me, gripping my waist once I was on my feet and led me through to the kitchen, his eyes never losing their focus as he pulled out a chair for me.

"Sit," he commanded and disappeared into the cupboards behind the island for a glass of water.

At that moment Henry came running through the door, scarf flying and a face full of excitement.

"I saw Mom, she says congratulations!"

So Regina knew. Regina was aware there was another baby on the way.

"What's up?" Emma asked following him through and locking the door behind her.

She eyed me and her father suspiciously in turn, waiting for an explanation.

I raised my hand a little, admitting I was the cause of everything that was going on.

"I was sick, your father took it a little too far," I rolled my eyes but couldn't stop the smile on my cheeks. I still loved him even though sometimes he forgot I could look after myself.

Emma nodded, clearly not able to think of anything else appropriate to say. David broke the stoney silence that fell, placing the glass of water down in front of me with a conversational 'So, Regina knows,' before back peddling a few paces to lean against a beam.

Henry had sat down across the table from me and he frowned. He never knew where to turn when we talked about his mother. I could understand a little of what he felt, having spent some of my childhood with the woman who became incapable of love. He wanted to love Regina but he knew deep down that she would never be good, she had suffered too much.

"She was happy! She won't hurt him, she wants to be good." My grandson's eyes flashed between the adults in his eye line.

Charming sighed, gaining Henry's attention,

"I know kid, but it's knowledge she could slip to the wrong people. Like Spencer."

"Who's Spencer?" I asked, pretty sure I hadn't heard this story.

"King George."

"But I thought he was-,"

"Dead? So did I, unfortunately not." This was new to me, however there were probably quite a few stories I was yet to hear. With Emma and I being stuck back in the Enchanted Forest for a while we'd missed a lot.

"To be honest they were going to find out anyway, how was I going to hide this?" My hands went to my little bump, indicating perfectly what I meant. Emma nodded,

"You're not gonna keep him hidden for much longer."

It felt good to get back to school the following day, good to be back to normal. It took my mind away from the horrors of Canavan's and King George. It didn't make all my problems disappear but it did make them easier to forget.

Unfortunately for me, and the others within hearing distance of the bathroom, my sickness continued. I was still feeling queasy when the children began to trail into the classroom at the beginning of the day. Henry already sat at his desk, arms folded and a grin firmly placed on his face. The children filed methodically from their coat pegs to their seats each carrying an object or a photograph, one- my little artist- had even drawn her events.

There was a room filled with old fashioned toys, the simple kind made of wood that I myself had grown up with. I noticed one child, a little boy named Tyler in the past but I wasn't aware who he really was, who clutched a very tatty teddy bear with one ear. He must have had the bear since babyhood, and only reacquainted with it in the past few weeks. Another girl, Angelina, carried a small cardboard box which she was very careful not to drop. It was intriguing to imagine the stories that hid in these little hands. Henry didn't carry anything in his hands. I knew he planed to talk about his time with his grandfather when I'd been cast away with his Mom.

The classroom was abuzz with excitement from the fifteen little kids the chatter never ending until I called their attention.

"Right, everyone! I want you to help me push the desks to the side and then we'll all sit on the floor to share our stories, yeah?" The children all nodded profusely and began to rush from their desks not caring that sitting on the floor was a bit childish.

Henry came up to me, his gaze suspicious.

"Would Grandpa let you move the tables?" Charming certainly had him well trained,

"Yes, Henry it's only lifting things I'm not allowed to do."

My grandson didn't look very convinced but he went back to rearranging the classroom. I'd barely put my hands on the edge of a desk to slide it into the side when another student sidled up to me.

"Excuse me your majesty," I smiled at the little girl's sincerity, as her little dark head popped up beside me,

"Oh honey, you don't to call me that. Just call me miss Blanchard like you used to."

"But shouldn't I call you Mrs Nolan, you are married to the Prince after all." I smiled at the girl but I knew she was right. It was strange to think we'd not discussed it, but things were a little mad at the moment. I glanced down at my hands and the shining peridot caught my eye. My ring still remained on the wrong finger. It hadn't been moved back in all the time since the curse.

I shook it off, turning my mind back to the small gathering of children sitting cross legged on the floor. It was a thought for another time.

We started with Heidi, who was delighted that she'd been reunited with her grandfather. The dark haired girl had brought a quilt that her Grandfather made when she was young. As we worked around the disorderly lump of children we discovered a brand new toy Giraffe, a photo of a family picnic and a chick appeared from Angelina's little box. It was almost time for recess when Henry sat down in his space and returned his bright smile to me.

It was my turn to talk.

I already held the small lilac envelope that held the photo in my hand, I'd thought constantly about how to do this, how to play around with what I was trying to say to my surrogate children.

I pulled the picture from its envelope and handed the photo to Henry,

"Now, I wonder if any of you can tell me what this picture is of." Henry passed the print around, smiling since he could see every part of his uncle amongst the dark. Charming had done a good job of explaining everything to him- even taking him aside and giving him a man to man chat when Henry asked him how exactly his Grandfather's seed had got inside me. Something that really should have been done by Henry's father but because he didn't have one in the picture Charming had decided all jobs on that front came down to him.

At least now that Henry understood the full mechanics of sex we wouldn't have to worry about any other awful questions.

The photo worked it's way around the puzzled children, one suggested the computer had printed it wrong another, a boy named Finn, suggested it was an alien. Eventually it found it's way back to me, much to my relief it was still in perfect condition since we only had one and this was going in the photo album.

"Now, you all had some good guesses, and yes he does look a little bit like an alien Finn. In fact this is a very special photograph. This is a picture inside my body and the alien you can see, is a baby."

Those words were met with equal amounts of delight, shock and not very much at all, in the child.

"This means that when it comes time for you to move on to fifth grade I won't be here any more, I'll need to leave to have my baby." That sentence was met with more understanding from the children who had spent twenty eight years seeing only one pregnancy.

"I don't want you to go Miss Blanchard," Heidi piped up, her tone showing she really was upset.

"I know, but I need to look after the baby now, I will see you all around town and I'll maybe bring the baby to see you once it's born." This brought a more positive attitude to the room and some more smiles were spread. That sentence seemed to be enough to settle their minds and soon a forest of beanstalk like hands were being thrust up into the air with a multitude of questions. Questions on the baby's gender, and what he ate came to life as well as where they lived and the more tentative why could only ladies have babies and not little girls. The questions kept on coming and coming till the bell rang for recess. Even then some of them were reluctant to leave.

Once I'd shoved them all out the classroom door I turned and made a beeline for my bag. I'd brought myself a cereal bar, anticipating after spending the morning throwing up I would be starving later. I had been proved right and had struggled to keep my stomach from growling all morning. Snatching the bar out of my bag I began to muse over how I'd managed to get morning sickness so late, perhaps Emma's theory was right and it was actually some sort of virus I'd picked up.

That's when I noticed the screen of my mobile was lit up, lifting it up I saw two missed calls and a text message were waiting for me.

The text was from Emma, the two calls also hers, one from the station and one her mobile. I opened the text and read:

Hey, don't worry or anything, du u know where David is, he meant 2 b taking Henry 2 the dentist remember? Thks X

The kiss was a new addition, I'd never been sent one of them from my daughter before and it shouldn't have but it got me instantly worried out of my mind. That one text and the phone calls had a bad feeling flowing through me, waves of worry slapping the walls of every single vein in me. I just knew this wasn't good.

I didn't bother listening to my voice mails, dialling Emma straight away, getting the number wrong twice before it rang. She picked up straight away.

"Hey, heard from him yet?" She asked first,

"No, I was hoping you had. Emma I've got a bad feeling."

"Look, I don't want to worry you. So do I. I've been phoning round Leroy, Marco, Granny, none of them have seen him and his truck hasn't moved since this morning. I want to try Ruby, see if she can help." Memories of David in the woods back before the curse was broken. He had disappeared without a clue what he was doing. I'd came face to face with the ravine out there and now images were staining my thoughts, images of my husband lying, bleeding at the bottom.

"She'll need his scent. I'm coming with you. I can't just sit here and wait for news. I'll meet you at Granny's in ten."

(A/N) bet you didn't expect that! Well actually neither did I, I just suddenly knew where to take this bit of the story! Hope you enjoy, what you liked, what you didn't is appreciated. Please review! Thanks again


	7. Chapter 7

He'd led me to the harbour, sitting in his car with the grim expression he always wore. The man I was supposed to call a father, the one who had done nothing but try to hurt me. Seeing me George glared for a few moments before slowly getting out of the car, not taking his eyes off me.

"What d'you want Spencer?" He chuckled once, menacingly.

"I hear your wife is expecting a bastard . And I thought she loved you." I knew his words were designed to wind me up but it made no difference. He knew how the curse had gone, that what happened with doctor Whale had been totally out with Snow's control.

"And you plan to raise it? How can you fathom what the wench did. You should cast her out-"

I jumped in before he could finish that line, "What do you want George?"

"I want to make you a very simple offer. You are still legally my son and so I will rid you of the child."

Sometimes I really couldn't understand how this man could live with his own mind, just because my son was not my own flesh and blood it didn't make him any less important to me. Yes I'd happily seek revenge but I wouldn't do it, Snow deserved better than that. Whale was a part of her past and maybe that wasn't ideal but it wasn't changeable either. I loved my wife and I was beginning to love my son too.

"Why would I do a thing like that?"

George laughed, looking at the ground viciously for a split second before his flat expression snapped back.

"Because you don't know what it is to lose a son. You are putting yourself up to suffer when the bastard has nothing to do with you. You should get out of it while you still can."

"And why would you say something like that?" I knew there had to be something more to this, it seemed too nice a thing for him to say, he would never be so concerned.

"Because that thing will not have my throne so if you don't sort this I will."

"And what exactly are you going to do?"

"Well, if I were you I would be keeping a close eye on that wife of yours, wouldn't want her to have an accident would we."

"You wouldn't risk that, you know that hurting Snow would only hurt the whole town. They aren't as stupid as you may think."

"No, but you are." That reply from George, coupled with a sadistic, narrow smile, went straight through me and sent a shiver straight over my skin. Something wasn't right. At that point I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, something told me the caller was Snow. The sudden vortex of purple smoke turned my thoughts away from my wife as a woman I'd never seen before appeared in a cloud of purple smoke, the way Regina had disappeared from our wedding. I took a few steps back, away from the woman who appeared even though I knew a being with that amount of magic couldn't be easily escaped from.

The one who appeared in the middle of the cloud was dressed in clothes I'd never seen in Storybrooke. Her dark clothes belonged back in our world, where we belonged. She was older but something about her looked familiar.

"We finally meet, so many years and to think I've never known my grandson-in-law."

Those words cemented the idea in my head. This woman was the one that my wife had recently came up against. Cora.

I mouthed my thoughts without thinking and the ageing woman laughed. Her voice confusing me, like when an adult laughed at the suggestive antics of a child, things that the child couldn't understand. In front of Cora I felt suddenly vulnerable and as innocent as the child in my mind.

"Oh my dear James, you sound so scared. You have nothing to be frightened of," Cora voiced in a very mocking tone.

"We don't want to hurt you," she continued to soothe. I knew it was all a trick, a white lie. She didn't want to hurt me. She wanted to hurt Snow, and I was her weakness.

"What are you going to do to her?" I tried to sound angry, my voice wavering and giving in to fear with each syllable.

"We're not going to touch your wife, your majesty, we're simply going to lead her to believe you, are dead."

It would destroy her, and the baby-which must have been George's tie in. My wife wouldn't cope in this world, we'd already had our fair share of tragedy in the past weeks, she didn't need any more.

I turned, tried to get away but deep down I knew better and dark magic shoved me to the ground. Vines grew out from the concrete ground and grabbed my wrists like a vice. I pulled at the stupid plants, angry for being such an idiot. Snow and our baby were both in real danger, they needed me but I wasn't good enough to help them. I was stupid enough to go and see the Father who only ever wanted bad, I was stupid enough not to run when the purple smoke arrived on the harbour's side.

"Why, my dear prince, what makes you want to run? If you struggle the vines will only get tighter." She mocked, slowly walking over to me, standing above me. I felt air close and grasp my throat, matching the way Cora posed her hand. She curled it as if to fit my throat and I could feel it, tighter and tighter she grasped. I began to choke, struggling to breath with pressure building in my lungs as they cried for oxygen.

"Now, are we going to be more agreeable this time?" Cora asked in a voice very similar to her daughter's.

I couldn't help myself, I could feel my eyeballs burning and my face reddening and I had to get air somehow. I nodded and was released, getting instant relief as the oxygen gushed down my windpipe and fed my starving lungs.

Cora removed the vines, allowing me to stand upright and look her in the eye. She smiled a sickening grin and opened her mouth to speak just as footsteps were heard in the distance, pairs of feet running down the harbour towards us.

"David!" One of the voices called, there was fear in the female tone. The voice which I recognised straight off. Snow.

Cora knew it too, she grabbed hold of my arm, pulling me towards her with a vice like grip and a strength with had to be altered by magic. The purple smoke began to swirl around us as I glanced towards the footsteps.

There were three of them: Emma, Mary Margaret and Ruby. They'd came looking for me, realised I hadn't replied to the texts and calls buzzing in my pocket.

The smoke became thicker, enclosing my vision. The last thing I saw before the world disappeared was the face of my wife, her eyes filled with horror.

Then there was a load whack, like a stone being thrown at a brick wall. The smoke disappeared and before my furious Grandmother-in-law could lunge for me again I ran. Turned and went straight towards my family.

I foolishly turned my back, missing the smile on Cora's face, missing her whispering of 'plan B' to George. I was just a few steps from them when a ball of flames flew right passed my head, hitting my wife and daughter with full force and throwing them both down against the concrete floor. I heard Emma's head knock hard against the ground with a hard hollow thunk. I ran straight to her, scrabbling down onto my hands and knees. I took her by the shoulders and gave her a strong shake. Her head lolled back like a baby's and her green eyes remained shut. She was unconscious. My hand went to the back of her head, supporting her while I thought about what to do. My hand felt wet and warm after just a few moments and pulling it away it became obvious why. My hand was stained with blood. She had hit her head so hard she had split it open. My head whipped back around, father-mode turning itself on and threatening to kill the witch who had done this. There wasn't a single clue either of the evil pair had ever been there.

"David!" Ruby's voice pulled me back to the present. I turned and saw to my total horror that she was crouched over Snow who was curled up on her side. Her hands clutched her belly and her eyes were squinted shut in pain. Another surge of panic flew through me and I rushed over to my wife's side.

"Snow!" She whimpered in return, Ruby's eyes lit brighter, filled with even more concern than before.

"I smell blood," she whispered, trying to keep her voice low so that Snow wouldn't hear her and panic more. I ran my hand across my wife's forehead and she carefully opened her eyes, her pupils widened with pain.

"It's going to be ok, we'll sort this out." My tone did nothing to reassure her, I was sure I was only making her worse, make her worry more than she needed to.

"Mom?" Emma's voice whispered. I turned to see my daughter standing behind me, wobbling unsteadily with concussion. She clutched the back of her head where blood continued to flow. I shoved my hand in my pocket and handed Emma my phone. She knew straight away what I expected her to do and dialled the the three numbers, announcing where we were to the person on the receiving end.

As Emma talked urgently down the phone my eyes caught a passer by walking along the promenade. I recognised his hair instantly and my possessive side wanted to stop Ruby. I knew better and didn't shove my hand over her mouth when she shouted Viktor.

Dr Whale turned as soon as she spoke- of course he would turn to the sound of a female voice- and came towards us in a slight jog. His expression was grim when he saw what was going on. Despite what I generally felt for this man my wife and daughter needed his expertise. My thoughts turned to Emma, who's skin had changed to match her

Mother's. I glanced up at my baby, communicating through my eyes. Emma understood and came to take my place next to Mary Margaret, wobbling as she tried to sit on the ground, her hand cautiously going to dab at her head once more. She looked as though she was about to throw up, I just hoped she missed her mother. I went to meet Whale, jogging down to him before he reached Snow's hearing range.

The man who stole my wife's monogamy, who in many ways violated her pure heart and soul, looked up at me. He looked concerned, something I hadn't expected to see in those eyes.

"She's bleeding," I hissed to the doctor, "Ruby said so, she doesn't know. She's in pain and Emma's concussed. It was Cora." I knew what I was saying probably made no sense to him but I wasn't used to this situation, I wasn't accustomed to seeing either of my girls injured. They were both strong, not the type to cry over a scratch or a broken finger. Snow was crying; I'd only seen her cry a few times and each of them had been due to real pain, either emotional or physical. The doctor nodded, walking quickly in order to keep up with me. "David!" He yelled and I realised he'd been trying to stop me.

"Look, I'm sorry about what's happened and all but we've got to hold things together." I nodded, understanding straight away. As much as I thought he deserved a broken nose and a few other breaks as well as castration for what he'd done to Snow and I but that could wait. Right now she needed a doctor and he was the best we had.

"For Snow. Only for Snow." He nodded promptly and continued past me towards my wife and daughter. Ruby moved, slinking away from Mary Margaret's side and towards me while the doctor asked her about her pain.

"You ok?" Emma's godmother and Snow's closest friend asked me. She knew to stay quiet, she knew my wife and knew how she behaved. That was one of the best things about Red, she knew it all and listened to everything she hadn't learnt yet.

"We'll he isn't dead yet," I answered truthfully, Ruby smiled, laughing inwardly. She could probably imagine what I'd love to do to a certain doctor.

"She'll be ok, Snow I mean, she always is. She's been through a lot worse than this." I sighed deeply, nodding slowly but didn't say a word.

"So, where would you start on Whale?"

"The source of the problem, right between his smug legs." Ruby laughed, causing Emma to look our way,

" but don't worry- I'd make it painful."

The school must have raised alarms when I didn't return to school, it was only supposed to be a short break. That was very much at the bottom of my thoughts, the class could cope with another teacher covering for the rest of the day.

The pain, the sharp and aching pain in my chest turned out to be a cracked rib for the fall. It was awful, painful to breath, to move or laugh. I'd been given dire morphine for pain relief and a monitor was strapped to my belly, showing a strong and healthy heartbeat. Our son was fine even if our daughter wasn't.

Charming had presumed right, Emma had concussion and her head had to be glued back together. Despite throwing up until she'd emptied her stomach she was fine-or so my husband reported.

I couldn't move from the bed, it was far too painful for one and I had been bleeding. That was why they were worried for our baby. Ruby had smelt blood straight away but of course it had been kept from me. Both Ruby and David had my best interests at heart but sometimes they needed to remember that worse has come my way before. You don't learn to fight without breaking a few bones and you don't go through pregnancy with a life as stressful as the one our family always finds itself in without a little blood.

He left to pick up Henry as soon as Emma and I were both settled, poor thing was having to be mother grandmother and grandfather as well as husband and father, a lot of roles to take on in one afternoon.

Emma had been placed in a different area of the hospital- I'd been settled in the maternity ward- and so I had to wait for Charming's return before I could get any more updates on my little girl's condition.

I was surprised to find that the ward was busy. Better health care during the twenty eight years of the curse had brought on something of a baby boom. There had been many women pregnant at the time of the curse being cast- most of them would have lost their baby because of the atrocious condition the kingdoms were still in when it all happened.

Now many of these women could look forward to the birth of a perfect little one. There were many glances and straight-on stares directed at me, which were really to be expected- I was their queen after all. It wasn't long before a nurse approached and explained that doctor Whale had requested I was put into a side room to give me a chance to rest properly. The fact that Whale had suggested I was moved sent a dagger of dread through my heart. He was taking more interest than I'd thought he would. I knew it was selfish but I wanted him to disappear into the world and forget he had made this baby inside me. I had hoped he would step back, tell no one and let Charming be a father again.

However it was nice to be given my own room. The room had an adjoining bathroom and a wall-mounted tv across from the bed. It had a little more space for visitors too.

I was flicking channels on the tv with the arm which wasn't immobilised by a drip when the door opened and a familiar clean-shaven face appeared.

My husband was carrying a blue plastic carrier bag which he placed on my bedside table while shuffling out of his coat.

" I brought you some pj's and that juice you've been addicted to lately." He lifted out some modest pyjamas, once which were now tight, but I decided to say nothing and then a litre bottle of white grape and peach fruit juice before his hand delved back into the crinkly bag to being out some much needed clean underwear and an old favourite film- The Ring of Bright Water.

"Do you want a bath? I could help you?" My prince asked dutifully but I shook my head, the pain was awful, too much to be moving around that much, instead I asked him if he would help me out of my soiled, bloody clothes and into something clean. The experience was a painful one, the ache was that exactly but more than triple the pain of normal muscular pain. David tried his best to be gentle and I had to laugh when he hasn't a clue how to put a pad on for me.

"How is the bleeding?" He muttered conversationally as he shoved my dirty clothes into the blue plastic bag.

"It's slowing, it isn't going to come to anything, just like last time. It will be alright, he's-."

His face dropped white the moment I stopped speaking and he began to shake my arm.

I laughed at his expression, taking the chance to reach up and suck his lips into mine. A throaty groan came from him, showing his appreciation of the surprise kiss. His hand gently pressed on the back of my head in a very small encouragement to keep it up.

I had no plans of stopping and ran my hands up through his hair opening and shutting my mouth in time until he slipped his tongue in, making me groan instead. He caressed the insides of my mouth twice more before pulling away from me.

"You tricked me," he smiled, I felt instantly guilty the look in his eyes was now a little desperate, they glistened with lust and it wasn't just his eyes that had reciprocated to my touch.

He looked embarrassed, the same blush he'd worn when our earliest kisses had made him react in the same way.

"Sorry," I whispered, trying not to giggle, "v'got ice cubes?" I suggested, laughing. He rolled his eyes and came in for another kiss, this time reaching for my belly, he kept his kisses light and slowly massaged my stomach at the same time. After a short moment of bonding however he had to go, he'd left Henry up with Emma and he needed to check on them.

"I love you, take care of our son in there," he pressed his hand hard onto my bump and we both laughed at the kick he received in return.

"See you tomorrow," I nodded, accepting his last kiss- and continuing to be thankful his jeans were loose.

The moment he left the room my mood sloped downwards, hitting the bottom. It was silly but I missed him already. I was desperate to just go home, to my own bed where I could curl up against my husband's chest and have my grandson there to make me laugh. I knew I was ok, I knew the bleeding was nothing to worry about. I didn't know why but I just knew, the same way I had when it happened before. The baby kicked and my stomach rumbled in perfect time with each other and I realised I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was nearing six. Hospitals took up so much time now, back in the Enchanted Forest we just called upon Doc for most things. Then again all he ever had to do was bathe wounds and my anti natal appointments- which only included listening with his stethoscope and feeling the baby's size and position. Hospitals were much more hygienic and specialised here.

My hand delved back into the bag for some food, wincing as every muscle in my body seemed to scream. Triumphantly I pulled out a bar of chocolate, it didn't have much nutritional value but it would do for now.

As I nibbled away our little boy turned flips inside me, it was funny to watch since he was now big enough to actually change the shape of my body as he moved around.

(A/N) I'm sorry this chap has taken so long! But it's a long chap, which is why I've chopped it in half. The next have will probably follow soon, hope you enjoy, please comment and thanks for waiting!

next chap includes an Emma/Snow moment and in a few chaps there'll be a charming/Snow only scene


	8. Chapter 8

(A/N) ok so, I'd pretty much given up on this story since there have been no comments for the last three chapters! but I got an email today saying that Raspberry not pink had followed the story and so I decided to update it. I'd lost hope guys! It's comments that make me want to write and upload this story, that make me want to do my research and all that sort of thing! Please send me some form of love?

The nurse hadn't long left me, having given me my final dose of medicine and done all the observations for the night when my visitor snuck in.  
I was lying there, trying to watch my DVD with little feet kicking at the blanket the nurse had draped over me when my daughter appeared in the room.  
I was relieved to see she didn't look I'll and her shy smile made me feel certain things weren't too bad. On the other hand she shouldn't have tried to leave the ward, what if she'd had an after effect of her injury and ended up far worse than she started. "Hey,"she smiled in greeting, walking across the room to take up the seat next to me.  
"Emma, what are you doing down here?"  
"I wanted to see you were ok. I knew David was telling me a lot of rubbish when he came to take Henry home and I wanted to see the damage for myself." My daughter shrugged and pulled her hospital dressing gown further around her.  
"How's your head?" I asked, the injury coming straight to the front of my mind. Emma shrugged again,  
"They glued it, it's a bit sore but nothing I've not had before- having Henry was a thousand times worse!"  
I laughed knowing exactly what she was talking about. Labour wasn't something I looked forward to doing again.  
"What about you, David didn't really say anything- he just came up in time to hear the doctors and had to disappear again. He wanted to be with you for the scan, incase it was bad news. Then Henry babbled on for the next half hour I had with him." I tried to turn over to face her but my broken bones protested and I had to flop back down. Emma noticed my attempt and reached for the bed's remote control,  
"Do you want to sit up a bit?" She asked in her best motherly tone, something I should have been giving to her and not the other way around. I was supposed to be Her mother.  
I nodded and braced myself, clenching my teeth as I prepared for the extreme pain. The bruises yelled at me as Emma pushed the button and the bed slowly groaned into a more upright position. My daughter watched the pain on my face with pain mirroring in her own eyes. The eyes of a parent, the parent she'd become over the past few months. The parent I had helped her become, even if back then I hadn't a clue I was really helping her or why I was doing it.  
"So what do they plan to do?" My daughter asked. I could tell she was talking in her sheriff-persona, trying to eliminate any real care from her voice. Even if I already knew she did care.  
I shook my head, "there isn't anything they can do, it's just a cracked bone so it will be pain relief and then I'll get to go home."  
"But, the bleeding?" I repeated the same action as before, smiling since I knew what these words would lead to.  
"It's already thinned out and it's happened to me before- when I had you- and that time it was pleasure rather than pain which brought it on. I must just have a blood vessel clad cervix."  
"You say pleasure- as in?"  
I nodded, knowing by the blush on her cheeks that she'd understood perfectly.  
"So a guy's- a guy- can hit your cervix, when your being, ugh loving?" She asked, sounding as nervous and embarrassed as any girl should on having that conversation with her pregnant mother.  
"Mmhmm, and oh it hurts!" I could remember it well, he had slid into me a bit to fast. I'd cried out in pain and he had been horrified.  
"Your father was so scared when I yelped in pain, I just told him to take it easy and carried on and then afterwards we realised I had bled all down my legs.  
"Doc couldn't explain it then, saying that bleeds happened. I'd had enough of people staring at my husband-only body parts and we didn't investigate further." I looked at Emma and began to laugh,  
"And when we told doc what we'd been doing your father had a face almost as red as your's."  
Emma smiled shyly, looking to the ground,  
"Didn't need to know that," she mumbled.  
"So how was Henry?" I asked he'd, changing to a subject she was far more comfortable with.  
"He's ok, happy to spend the night with his grandpa-says they're going to get on with operation bumblebee. And no I don't know what operation bumblebee is. He told my it was between him and David." I smiled, knowing exactly what it would be about.  
"They'll be doing something for the baby,"  
Emma nodded,  
"Henry's really excited about it, you'd think I was the one that was pregnant."  
I laughed, some times it hurt that it was my grandson rather than my daughter who was thrilled for the new baby. It was Henry who had asked if he could feel my stomach and had been given the tour by his grandpa of where to press so he could really feel his uncle. Henry had laughed when he saw my stomach move with the baby's kicks and it was him who was thinking up name suggestions. Emma was too old for all of that. She couldn't get back those childish things, she wouldn't lay her head down on my chest or let me braid her hair or advise her on her clothes. She was her own woman.  
"Maybe he'll ask for a baby brother next,"  
Emma shook her head,  
"Nuh uh, this is meant to teach him how awful and boring babies can be so he doesn't want one!"  
We both laughed, though I did hope one day I'd be there, clutching Emma's hand as she gave birth to my second grandchild. She wasn't ready yet, in many ways Emma was still a child.  
There was a clatter out in the corridor. The sound of a glass being dropped or one metal trolley crashing into another. We both jumped out our skin, my first instinct was to turn to Emma and the look in her eyes, even though it only lasted for a split second, went straight to my heart. She looked terrified, like a child who had just heard the monster under their bed. The look of horror only lasted for a moment and then it was gone but it had been there and it had meant something.  
My hand reached over for her even though she was too far away for us to touch without serious pain flooding through my side. She noticed my gesture and she tried to look surprised.  
"Emma," I chastised, trying to ease out the thorn that the room made for my baby. There seemed to be something about hospitals which made my daughter nervous. A nervous I couldn't quite explain.

"Grandpa?" Henry asked, standing in his pyjamas and stripy socks with a biscuit in one hand.  
"Yeah," I replied, sighing as I put my wife's 'M' mug back in the cupboard and popping the tea bag into my own mug instead. She was in the hospital, I reminded myself, she would be home very soon.  
"What if you, y'know, have a nightmare and Grandma isn't there to wake you up. Maybe," he paused shifting from foot to foot,  
"Maybe I should sleep with you tonight, then if you have a nightmare I can wake you up and you could do the same for me."  
I smiled looking down at his little bowed head. The kid needed a Dad, something he had never had, something I had never had either. He needed all parts of a father figure whether that was being there to wake him from his nightmares or teaching him how babies were made. I would try to be a father to him as much as I planned to be for the baby boy living inside Snow's belly. Maybe I wasn't the child's father but I would be there every step of the way.  
Henry looked up and smiled at me with a bright grin that reminded me of his grandmother and I smiled back, leading him over to the bed Snow had neatly made that morning as she walked heavily around trying to get everything in order. I slipped the duvet down and hopped into my wife's side of the bed allowing Henry to take mine.  
Henry looked so small with his head on my pillow, his eyes were already closing as he fought off the need to sleep. He'd had a long day. By the time we'd got back from the hospital and eaten it had been eight already then Henry had homework and a shower to get. His hair still wet on the white pillows he fell asleep the second the lights went out.  
I wasn't so lucky, I struggled to sleep without the feeling of her lying on my chest, or the feeling of her head being tucked up next to my arm. She was my wife and I loved her, I worried when she wasn't here because so much happened when I wasn't around! I always turned up after she'd been hurt somehow, after another vile doctor had got his hands in too deep. I didn't want to leave them there with him but as much as I wanted to hate Dr Whale he was a good man at heart, hardened by life just as Emma had been. I couldn't hate anyone, so Snow had always told me, hate was too strong a word for anyone sane. She believed not even Regina deserved to be hated after all her step-mother had done.  
I reached under her pillow, pulling out her pyjamas and pulling the loose cotton top to my nose. I inhaled her scent, loving the smell that was only her and free from perfumes or fabric conditioner. It was the smell of her hair on our wedding day, the smell of her skin and the smell that could now only be found in our bed. I felt like a frightened kid clutching her t-shirt to my skin, stretching the fabric across my nose in order to get as much of her as I could.

"When I was eight," My baby girl began to explain, her eyes focussing anywhere but on me, "I met new foster parents. They were called Andy and Julie and they already had four kids. There were my brothers Austin, Jacob and Dean, and then not long after I joined the family they adopted a little girl from China called Fang Hua. The family was a bit of a mess and Julie used to snap at us a lot. She was ok though, they all were. "Andy worked late, most nights he wasn't home till seven but Julie didn't work so I spent most of my time with her. Fang Hua was only three or four years old- I can't really remember- and the house didn't have much room so we had to share. It was fine, like that, for a while and then it all changed. Austin got in with some really weird kids and he would disappear in the middle of the night, not come back for days. It worried Julie, she began to drink and struggled to care for the rest of us. Austin was twenty three he could take care of himself. We needed her.  
" I demanded her attention one night, begged at first then screamed at her because I needed help with my homework. She'd already had her fill of alcohol for the evening and when she looked at me her eyes were glassy. We were at the top landing and near the stairs when she shoved me."  
My hand went straight to my mouth, clapping it over to stop the gasp or scream which would have arisen and came flying out. My heart squeezed inside my chest, choking on the blood it contained.  
I could picture her, my little girl with long blond hair and white sneakers lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs. In my mind her eyes were closed but when my eye's met those of present-day Emma they were very distant. Emma looked almost right through my body and the wall beyond but she continued to tell her story.  
" I broke my arm in two places and had to stay in hospital for a while. I had to get the bones realigned and pinned together under a general anaesthetic. Julie didn't stay with me, she was horrified that she hurt me but she had Fang Hua and Dean, and Jacob, and Austin, and Andy to take care of. I was still in hospital when Julie and Andy got a call from the police, Austin had been found. He was dead in a flat full of the remains of a party. I'm pretty sure his drinking killed him, maybe drugs too. Hospital's just make me think of those times."  
My arms begged to wrap her up, to pull her in tight under my chin, against my chest and to rub her back. I wanted to do something, anything to rid my mind of what was happening to my baby girl. My poor, poor Emma.  
I could see her in my mind, sitting in a big hospital bed with her baby blanket tucked tightly under one arm. She wore pink pyjamas and a pair of glasses, her hair fell around her shoulders in a way that made it look false and plastic. There was no sign of a smile on her little face. There was no light in her green eyes.  
I lifted my head to look at the real Emma beside me, her expression was hard, solid and defiant. She was warning herself not to date cry even if she wanted to. My vulnerable little girl had hidden behind a concrete wall, the wall which had only grown thicker and wider and taller as she grew till she found herself at the bottom of her own self-built well. The people who were supposed to look after my baby hadn't done their job but that was my fault, if I hadn't made a last minute decision to send her away, if we had all stayed together curled up in my blood soaked sheets then maybe the little girl in my head wouldn't have been there with her eyes burning into my soul.  
"It's not your fault." Emma spoke, making me remember my daughter was still by my side. She looked up at me, cautiously sliding her hand onto my bed. I grabbed it, almost too fast, almost too much love was in the gesture for Emma to handle. This time she didn't pull away. She looked at me with content in her eyes and I dared to reach across and hug her.  
My brain and my emotions seemed to have stopped communication however because I forgot my ribs and bit my lip against the extreme pain I got from twisting my body. Emma looked concerned, reaching for my shoulder with her other hand. An immediate 'what's wrong?' Flying from her mouth before she could even properly move her lips. She cared so much for me, probably no more or less than she had before I was her mother but she cared all the same and that thought brought a smile to my face.  
I shook my head at her, trying to dampen her confusion- she'd been through more than enough of that recently,  
" I just wanted to-."  
My little girl interrupted me not with words, with movement. She understood what I wanted and reached over from her chair and lay her arm slowly over my belly and lay her head down against it. Softly pressing against my stomach from the outside for the first time. I put my hand down gently on her head, burying my fingertips between the long blond locks. Emma opened her eyes and looked at me, her cheek still pressed against my little bump, and laughed.  
"What?"  
"I feel so silly," she replied, trying to move off and back to her previous position but I stopped her, holding my hand against her head even if I shouldn't have done it. We had discussed allowing Emma to come back to us in her own time, to let her accept and work out what she needed. I had needs too, and my need was to hold my not so little girl.  
The baby kicked viciously and Emma jumped, pulling away from me and clasping her hand over her ear, rubbing it.  
"Oh!" She grumbled.  
"It looks like he's not up for sharing," I chuckled, watching my daughter glare down at my bump, her eyes looking ready for revenge.  
"Jees kid! If you wanted me to move you could have asked nicely!" She told my stomach.  
I laughed, straight out. She looked so offended by the poor child who wasn't even aware of what he was doing in there. Emma's eyes snapped to my face. At first she continued to glare but after a few seconds she lost it and began to laugh as well.  
It felt strange, to think that I was laughing with my daughter rather than my friend. This was the kid I gave birth to, and she was also my closest friend. All laughter seemed to leave Emma's face at around the same time, she looked around the room with her head bent in the way she did when thinking of what to say.  
"Look," she began, slowly tilting her head to meet my eyes, " I don't want to place any blame here. I didn't have a great childhood, and that is something you know and I'm not putting on you and David but I want this little guy to have better. I want him to have what Henry and I missed out on-"  
"And your father and I," she nodded,  
"And so he deserves a functioning family- as functioning as he can get with us, so." Emma stopped, looking down and drawing in a deep breath before she said the point of her speech.  
" I want to change my name. I want to be Emma Blanchard."  
I didn't know what to say. My mind was reeling and my heart, it was pounding with so many different feelings; pride, astonishment, love and bewilderment. Emma watched my eyes, her own green orbs burning into mine as she waited for a reaction from me.  
It felt as though she had just handed me herself on a plate and it was almost too much, too big a thing to just give to me. It was as if she had just offered to die for me, as if she'd offered to be a surrogate mother or give a kidney or some bone marrow. She had never even said the word mom and yet she wanted to make it official, she wanted to be a part of our family.  
"I just keep thinking that I'm the only one who's not got a family. Henry is a Mills and then there's you and David and you guys are married. I'm just me- the lone swan. Like I said I want him to be part of a family, I want him to know love and not have what I did growing up. I was always asked why I had a different name from my brothers or sisters, why I didn't look like them. If we are going to protect our family and all then we need to be one, right?"  
"Oh Emma!" I gasped, throwing my arms back around her and pulling her to me. My baby, my beautiful baby, all grown up and making decisions for herself.  
She laughed nervously, pulling back a bit, she'd had enough body contact for one day. It wasn't in her to be good at affection. I however couldn't resist and reached for her cheek, stroking her fair skin. She had my skin tone and her father's hair, a combination that surely meant she'd burn if she so much as saw the sun. Her skin was smooth, soft as that of the little girl I could still picture in my mind, the little girl I'd never meet. She was so like me, her cheeks, her jaw shape, her eyebrow arch and the colour of her eyes were all mine.  
"My baby," I whispered, letting my hand slide from her cheek and fall back on the bed.  
A shiver ran through me, popping goosebumps up on my skin which Emma noticed instantly and grabbed the blanket from the end of my bed, wrapping the thin blue throw around my shoulders.  
"Better?"  
"Thanks." Emma shrugged,  
"Well we've got to look after that kid in there. The only thing worse than being pregnant was to be pregnant and uncomfortable."  
"I like it, knowing I'm doing something only half the population can do, it feels amazing to be creating new life. To be able to keep my baby safe in a way you can't once they're born,"  
Emma nodded, agreeing vigorously.  
"But you've got the guy of your dreams by your side. I had no one, the little kicks that I got in the middle of the night were an annoyance compared to-,"  
"Compared to having a husband who enjoyed rubbing away the pain." My big girl nodded, sadly. She had it in her, we were so alike in every other way so I was sure she had the fight I had, the need to keep my baby safe and the fierce love which nothing- not even Charming's love- could compare to.  
"I loved you, Emma, from the moment I was sure I'd skipped a period right up to labour. It was difficult to love you for a short while after my waters broke- that burning sensation is like no other." She laughed, nodding vigorously,  
"But I did and do love you, I'm so sorry I wasn't there for those first steps, or to hold your hand when you gave birth to Henry but I will be there next time. I'm sure there will be a next time, but this time you won't go any of it alone. I promise that more than life itself."


	9. Chapter 9

"Miss Blanchard," Dr Whale began, the morning after the accident, and Snow opened her eyes, turning sleepily to look at him. I had to hold back the thought that it wasn't the first time he'd seen her like that.  
"This is Mr Stoke, the anaesthetist who will be looking after you today throughout the surgery and he will monitor you and the foetus throughout."  
The anaesthetist smiled down at Snow, offering his hand which my wife happily took and shook lethargically.  
"I'm sure one of our surgical nurses has already run the procedure past you, are you happy with everything you've been told Miss Blanchard." She nodded and the tall man in the blue scrubs began to fix her bed for travel up to theatre. The sides were raised and the oxygen mask switched from the wall to the portable black tank.  
"You'll be alright Grandma," Henry announced giving her his brightest smile, a smile she tried her best to return.  
"See you soon," Emma chirped and then, after a last stroke to the forehead she was off, leaving us to sit and wait.  
"Henry, will you go to the machine and get us some coffees please." I asked as soon as we were led into the waiting room by a smiling nurse. Emma clearly knew what was coming and her eyes went right to a pile of leaflets sitting in the middle of the room, there was no way Doctor Whale just happened to get a nose bleed and my daughter had just happened to be in the very same room.  
"What happened?" I began, there was no point beating about the bush she knew she'd done something and I knew she had so she might as well tell the truth.  
"I gave him what he deserved! He's a creep David and he needed to learn-"  
"No Emma, he was doing his job."  
She got to her feet, her eyes glistening with fury.  
"How can you say that? He missed an injury that could have killed her!"I got it, of course I got it. She had a right to hate this guy but still.  
"Emma," I got to my feet, putting a hand firmly on each of her arms to keep her there, "I know, ok. I know you want to hurt him. I do to, he slept with my Wife Emma, and now there is a beautiful little boy growing inside her and it's not mine. Don't you think that disgusts me, makes my stomach crawl and makes me want to knock him cold? Of course it does but I don't, for Henry and for Snow. What happened, that was then, that was all Regina but we learned a long time ago that beating Regina is a very easy thing to do if you don't let her in. The whole curse is jumping for joy up there in curse heaven thinking of a one-night mistake ripping us apart. We've got to stay strong for them, for Mary Margaret, Henry and our son."  
She looked down at her feet, frustration clear on her face, like her mother Emma didn't like to be proved wrong but this time she accepted it.  
"What about Henry?" She started again turning to look back up at me,  
"I mean, should he be told about Whale?"  
I took a deep breath, it became my turn to look at something other than my daughter. That something being a poster about the dangers of MRSA-not something I particularly wanted to think about.  
"It depends on Whale. We can't deny him access to his son if he wants to have it. If he wants to know the baby then we will have to tell Henry but-"  
"But by then he might feel left out of the loop," Emma finished for me with a definitive nod.  
"It's not easy. He's not always old enough to understand, and the creation of our son isn't something he can make sense of yet." I took a breath and changed the course of my thoughts.  
"It's difficult. The whole situation is difficult. Your mother didn't know she'd done anything wrong, she was acting on her false memories. Mary Margaret didn't know she had a husband to drunkenly cheat on."  
My adult daughter smiled sympathetically. A smile that could have been a grimace.  
"I can't really help, I never had that kind of love. It never mattered enough for it to mean something when the guy abandoned me." Emma shrugged and I felt for her, the short time between waking from my coma and the curse breaking had been the only time in my entire life that I hadn't felt loved. Up until now Emma had never felt loved, not in the deep, unconditional way that both her Mom and I had since birth.  
At that point Henry appeared at the door carrying a cardboard cup in each hand and a sweet packet tucked under his elbow. He glared at us, knowing he'd missed something important.  
"Is something wrong?" Both Emma and I shook our heads in perfect timing.  
"We were just thinking that maybe you two should head home," I started to say with a pair of eyes burying into the side of my head from my daughter,  
"I'll phone you when I know what's happening, I promise." To my total surprise Emma nodded,  
"Yeah, come on kid he's right. You don't have to go to school just get some food and rest at least." She got to her feet, placing her hand on his shoulder. My Grandson nodded and came to hand me my coffee before heading after his Mom, leaving me alone in the family room.  
A big sigh slipped from my lungs as the last fourteen hours ran through my mind. I almost couldn't remember the phone call that woke Henry and I at 3:40am, saying a shard of rib had sliced into my wife's lung and caused it to collapse. Now my wife and son were battling to stay alive as the doctors battled to save them. I could set the scene in my head, the dark, blue theatre with a high white table and turquoise drapes- an oceanic scene with blood rather than water. I could see her face. In my head she looked calm and serene with her eyes softly closed and her bangs wiped back from her face. She looked asleep, except I knew she never slept that way, she said she felt vulnerable on her back and many nights in the forests had taught her that sleeping with your back to the wind conserved enough heat mostly to keep you alive. She wasn't dreaming, she wasn't sleeping. She simply lay there like an ivory statue, showing a similar amount of life.  
I squeezed my eyes together, then rubbed them hard and tried to draw the dirt out, the things I didn't want to see or think. Another thought scurried up to the front of my brain and begged to be heard.  
What if the baby died and Snow lived?  
What would I feel? What Should I feel? I knew they were different. The baby, and maybe it was because we were yet to meet face to face or maybe it wasn't, if it died I wouldn't feel anything at all. It wouldn't feel as though a single part of my life had really changed. I felt awful for being that way but it was the truth.  
This baby would be in our care from birth onwards and all that would change was his size and weight, but he was still our baby, Snow's child, Emma's brother and Henry's Uncle. And I would try my hardest to make him my son.

Pain. Fatigue. Endless pain, pain that made me want to cry even though it didn't feel any more than numbing. Fatigue as though I hadn't slept in days, weeks, so tired I felt my eyes being forced to give in and my brain sobbing that it needed rest.  
Still I was aware of where I was, I was in a small room, white walls, white doors, white windows. I was in a white lined bed with white sheets and a rush of colour in the way of a blue blanket tossed over the end.  
I could feel a sticky plastic oxygen mask clinging to my face with the edges digging in to my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. I felt a cuff around my arm and a variety of IV lines in the other, a cool tube lying against my skin which must have contained water. I felt a plastic strap wrap around my stomach and lastly a pair of tight stockings suckered on my legs, making the sensation disappear from my knees onwards in a sliding scale until it met my senseless feet.  
I was sure there was someone there, I could feel the presence but my eyes were so tired, so much in need of sustenance from sleep that they refused to even twitch in response. A large rough hand, a male hand, laid very carefully on my forehead, stroking at my hair. I knew the owner of that hand could only be one man but still the tiredness was too much.  
The pain got too much, my chest feeling restricted and my lungs feeling like they were being squeezed. I was too tired and too sore and I began to drift off into sleep once more.

She came around for a few moments when they brought her back to her high dependency unit room. She had been hooked back on to the mains oxygen in the wall behind her headboard and her oxygen says monitor was pegged back onto hr finger. This time they added something further, another little trolley was dragged in. It bore a monitor, not much bigger than the one attached to the IV. The nurses wrapped a strap under her and fastened it firmly over her now bare belly. The small circular box on the top was transferring the heart beat of the baby onto the monitor so that it was easy to track.  
I helped one of the nurses, a plump and smiley older woman, to take off the white gown she wore and slip a thin spaghetti strapped top on which I'd borrowed from Emma. Snow needed to be kept as cool as possible. Her temperature had risen since the operation and for the baby's sake they needed to regulate it as quickly as they could. It bothered me how little all of this information was doing to me. I knew I should be feeling something, anything! But I didn't, I just took it in and let it all go. The sweet nurse told me it was getting too much for my brain to cope with, she said I should go home and get some rest but I couldn't. Emma and Henry didn't need me there and I could do without all their questions. And so I watched, sitting beside my wife as she lay in her white bed. Normally I wasn't aware of how pale she really was but right then her skin and the sheets were a matching hue. She looked like she had once before, in a pretty glass coffin. Dead, or almost dead. True love's kiss would do nothing for her here, her pain had nothing to do with Cora's magic, she was just caught up in the aftermath. That pain was meant for me and yet again I pulled her down too. Stay too close to the fire and you'll get burnt, that's what my mother used to tell me.  
I remembered the first time she used it as a metaphor. We had a sick lamb and I had been trying to coax it through with thin milk and warm blankets but the lamb only got sicker and eventually my mother stepped in. She had stayed away from our sick one so she wouldn't feel as much heart ache when she placed a blanket over its mouth and nose and held it tight until the young sheep was dead.  
I couldn't do that for Snow, I would suffer severe burns from that flame. She was my everything.  
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the cool night and the dark sky. Stars shined out from the sky. Different stars from the ones at home of course but stars none the less. I pushed my hand up against the pane of the window, feeling the cold come through to my hand. The sun was beginning to make an appearance to the east, a tiny flicker of orange light lapping at the sky. A tiny patch of hope that the darkness would soon end. I couldn't do any more than hope.  
I felt restless, needing to do something, anything, to help my wife but there wasn't a single thing I could do. Her health lay in the hands of fate and it was hard to have faith but I had to try. As I turned to go and slide back into my chair at her side I saw the skin of her stomach jump. Our son was strong, his heart beat steady and now his little feet were drumming away.  
'Wake up Mummy, get better,' his movements seemed to say. I let my hand go under the edge of her barely fitting t-shirt and against the little foot. Touching her smooth, scarred skin, stretched and lined with red from the size of our little boy.  
"It's alright, things'll get better." I whispered, rubbing the spot where I could almost feel the tiny child. He wasn't quite big enough yet to be obvious to the world but he was aware of us. I needed to be his Dad now, because Snow wasn't able to be his Mom.

"Emma? Mom?" Henry must've woken up. I didn't want to move from where I'd collapsed on the sofa, even if my son decided four hours of broken sleep was enough. It made me wish self-release from hospital wasn't as easy as it had been. I needed rest to get over the concussion but ten year old's didn't seem to understand the meaning of proper rest.  
"Has Grandpa phoned yet?"  
Mary Margaret.  
My Mom.  
Shit.  
I could hear his little feet thumping on the upstairs landing and dug between the sofa cushions for my phone.  
Ten missed calls.  
Crap.  
David(Dad) was shown in bright red on the screen. I pressed redial just as my floppy-haired son began to bound down the stairs like a long-legged puppy.  
"David, hi," I began loudly the second I heard the beep of the answer machine.  
"Just, sorry I didn't get your message. I've tried to phone you but it wouldn't go through," I lied, "anyway get back to me as soon as. I hope Mary Margaret and the baby are doing ok."  
Henry, having by this point reached the bottom of the stairs, seemed happy enough with my attempts at a white lie. I really had meant to call and I felt sick with guilt for falling asleep and forgetting about my Mom. Any good child would remember their parent was having a very major operation and would struggle to sleep because of it and 'I was tired' didn't feel ever close to a good excuse.  
My eyes began to look at the room round about me. It had only been one full day since Mary Margaret and I had been in hospital and yet the two boys had piled up the dishes in the sink, left glasses and mugs to weld to the coffee table and ignored the pile of mail under the door.  
Boys; ugh.  
I decided that cleaning up a bit would be a good idea, I realised that Mary Margaret probably wouldn't be home for another few days at least but we needed some kind of order. My eyes went straight to the kitchen, the first place everyone saw when they walked in the front door. Looked like it would be my first section to tackle.  
"So, what are we doing today?" My overly-enthusiastic son asked, following me towards the kitchen.  
"Tidying up, this place is a tip and I doubt it's what David wants to see when he walks in the door." The look on Henry's face matched the feeling in my head.  
"Yeah, I know- it's not my idea of fun either but. Look maybe we'll get to go in to see your Grandma later yeah?" His green eyes were rolled and he trudged off in the direction of the alcove which housed his grandparents' room.  
I got stuck in to the kitchen, more stuck in than I'd ever thought possible but with the radio blaring and a cupboard which actually had the needed cleaning products in it, my job was a lot easier. I did the dishes in the sink, and the ones gathering around the rest of the house; wiped down the surfaces; cleaned the sink and even went to town on the cooker. If Mary Margaret had walked in right then she'd have been sending me straight back to the hospital thinking I had brain damage.  
It dawned on me that David hadn't phoned me yet and my eyes wandered to the clock. There I got my first shock, which was quickly followed by the second.  
It was quarter past one. I had spent the whole morning cleaning the kitchen. And Henry had not yet appeared begging for food. Nor had he made any noise for a while.  
Fear slid into my veins and began to pump through my body, a mother's instinct. I immediately felt uneasy even though it wasn't likely anything could have happened to him. I got up from my squatted position on the kitchen floor surrounded by multicoloured cleaning bottles.  
"Henry?"  
No answer. I walked quickly over to the alcove and found him sitting on the bed. It was still a mess, he hadn't moved for ages. He was holding a sheet of paper, reading it with confusion plastered on his face.  
"Henry?" I asked again, coming to sit down next to him. The springs creaked as I sat down. The creaky springs that I'd heard being put to use more nights than I wanted to think about.  
"What is this? I don't understand," then I saw what he held.  
It was a letter addressed to Mr and Mrs Charming and it had arrived only the day before the Cora-incident. It had been sent by Whale and that was all I knew. Scanning it over my son's shoulder I could understand his devistation, it read:  
Dear Mr and Mrs Charming,  
I would like to set out some conditional agreements over the possible adoption of my unborn child. There is suitable evidence to conclude that I am the biological father and so David technically has no rights to the child. However I am happy to allow the adoption to proceed under the following conditions.  
"Oh, kid. It wasn't supposed to be a secret from you, we just didn't get the time to explain-,"  
"But 'biological father' that means the same as birth father. Doctor Whale can't be Mary Margaret's baby's dad. That's David's job!"  
My hand tested on his shoulder, poor kid, it would break his heart to know the whole truth. But he needed to know it.  
"I know but the baby is Doctor Whale's baby.  
"Back before the curse was broken and before Mary Margaret could remember David, she did a silly thing. She spent a night with Doctor Whale and that's who made her pregnant."  
At that Henry looked even more confused.  
"Grandpa told me that if you don't want to have a baby but still want physical love there are medicines you can use or other things you can to stop from having a baby. Why didn't they just do that?"  
I looked at the floor, I didn't want to shatter his whole world in an instant. Even the most piercing of true loves could suffer from the cocktail of alcohol and lust.  
"Because she made a mistake, she didn't think. I, I don't know the whole story Henry but this is the way it is now."

(A/N)  
Sorry it's been so long but school has been cruel to me and I've been ill all week plus my iPod decided to delete everything I'd typed so this short chap is a re-type.  
sooo, I was delighted to get the amount of comments I did last time, and hope you guys will be as awesome once more...? Please? Let me know what's good, bad and indifferent! Thanks!


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